News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-05-18

uD nave conquered dll my lO6S anu
preached funeral sermons i'll honor of
most of them.
The best thing you can do with jaVe-
lin hurled at you is to let it lie where it
dropped or hang it up in your museum
as n curiosity. The deepest wound made
by a iavelin is not by the sharp edge, but
at the dull end of the handle to him who
yields it. l leave it to you to say which
got the best of that fight in the palace
Saul or David.
See also in my subject that the fact
that man sometimes lodges is not
against his courage. My text says that
when Saul assailed him, David avoided
out of his presence twice"-that is, when
the javelin was flung, he stepped out of
its direction or bent this way or that-in
other words, he lodged. But all those
who have read the life of David know
that he was not lacking in prowess.
David had faults, but cowardice was not
one of them.
When David, who was, l guess, about
II feet high, went out to meet the giant,
who was, guess, about 10 feet high, it
WAS cb Dl3 LIluS1 anu llIC
ties of the struggle were so great that it
struck the giants idea of the ludicrous,
and he suggested to the little fellow that
he would make a fine dinner for buzz
card or a jackal-'Come to me, and
will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the
bir and to the beasts of the field"
COURAGE OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
b !
giant and conquered him, he demon
strated, as he did ON other occasions, his
courage. But | am so glad that when Saul
flung that javelin David lodged it, or
the chief work of his life would never
have been done. What lesson this is
to those who go into useless danger and
expose their lives or their regulations or
their usefulness unnecessarily. When
duty demands, go ahead, though all earth
and hell oppose. Dodge not one inch
from the right position. But when moth
ing is involved step back or step aside.
Why stand in the way of perils that
you can avoid? Go not into quixotic
battles to fight windmills. You will be
of more use to the world and the church
as an active Christian man than as a tar
get for javelins. There are Christians
always in a fight. If they go into
churches, they fight there. If they go
into prest,yteries or conferences or conso-
Citations, they fight there. Ny advice to
You is, il anything is to be gained for
God or the truth, stand out of the way
of the javelins. l Samuel xviii, 1 1, ''Da-
vid avoided out of his presence twice"
Washington was as mighty in his re-
treats as in his advances. His army
would several times have been destroyed
if he had not lodged. He lodged on
Long Island; he lodged on New Jersey
heights. Lincoln on his way to inaugu-
ration at Washington was waited for by
assassins, bgt he took another train and
lodged the desperadoes. We have high
example Of the fact that sometimes a
man will serve God best by disappear
ing from this or that place, this or that
A mob brought Christ to the top of
the rocks back of Nazareth. They did
not like his preaching, and they proposed
to hurl him down the precipice. But
while they were getting ready for the
Christ darted into the crowd
and amid the confusion escaped to Ca
pernaum and continued exercising dew
lis and cooling fevers and filling fish nets
aud giving healthy circulation of blood
to paralysis and curing dementia and
turning corpses into living men and
women and doing his chief work.
What a good thing he lodged the
crowd on the rocks back of Nazareth!
Likewise at Jerusalem one day, while he
was sauntering up and down in Solo
mons porch waiting for an opportunity
to say kind words or do useful deed,
the people proposed to pay him for his
self sacrifices by stoning him to death,
but the record is, HE escaped out of
their hands,"
CAUSELESS HATRED.
See also in my subject the unreason-
able attitude of javelin toward harp.
What had that harp in David's hand
done to the javelin in Sauls hand? Had
the vibrating strings of the one hurt the
keen edge of the other? Was there an
Did grudge between the two families of
sweet sound and sharp cut? Had the tri-
angle ever insulted the polished shaft?
Why the deadly aim of the destroying
weapon against the instrument of sooth-
ing, calming, healing sound?
Well, | will answer that if you will
tell me why the hostility of so many to
.he gospel, why the virulent attacks
against Christian religion, why the angry
of so many to the most genial,
most inviting, most salutary influence
under all the heavens. Why will men
give their lives to writing and speak
ng and warning against Christ and
he gospel? Why the javelin of the
worlds hatred and rage against the
larp of heavenly love? You know
md | know men who get wrathfully
ed in the face and foaming at the
mouth and use the gesture Of the clinch-
ID fist and PIT down their feet with in
lignant emphasis and invoke all sar-
,asm and irony and vituperation and
3corn and spite at the Christian reli-
gion. What has the Christian religion
lone that it should be so assailed?
Whom hath it bitten and left with hy-
lrOphobia virus in their veins that it
should sometimes be chased as though it
we're q maddened canine?
To head off and trip up and push
Town and corner our religion was the
dominant thought in the life of David
Hume and Voltaire and Shaftesbury
md even the Earl of Rochester, until
me day in princely house, in which
hey blasphemously put God on trial,
md the Earl of Rochester was the attor-
ley against God and religion and re-
eived the applause of the whole COM
AMY, when suddenly the earl was struck
mder conviction and CRIED Good God,
hat man who walks uprightly, who
ees the wonderful works of God and
las the use of his senses and reason,
hOuld use them in defying his Creator!
wish | had been crawling leper in a
itch rather than have acted toward
Tod as | have done"
Javelin of wit, javelin of irony, javelin
f scurrility, javelin of sophistry, jave-
in of human and diabolic hostility have
een flying for hundreds of years and are
ying now. But aimed at what? At
that has come to devastate
he world? At something that Stays ma
ions? At something that would maui
nd trample under foot and excruciate
nd crush the human race?
THE WONDERFUL HARP.
No, aimed at the gospel harp-harp
Il which prophets played with some
that lingering and uncertain fingers,
ut harp on which apostles played with
ublime certainty, and martyrs played |
yhile their fingers were on fire. Harp |
hat was dripping with the blood of the
'hrist, out Of whose heartstrings the
arp was chorded and from whose dying |
roam the strings were keyed. Oh, Cos