Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-02-09

that there were monsters large enough to
whelm ships.
The extinct ichthyosaurus of other ages
was 80 feet long, and as late as the sixth
century of the Christian era up and down
the Mediterranean there hoated monsters
compared with which a modern whale was
a sardine or herring. The shark has again
and again been found to have swallowed n
man entire. A fisherman on the coast Of
Turkey found u sea monster which con.
tanned II woman and purse Of gold.
| have seen in museums sea monsters
large enough to take down prophet But
| have a better reason for believing the Old
Testament account and that is that Christ
said it was true and type Of bis own resur
rection, and l suppose he ought to know
| In Matthew xii, 40, Jesus Christ says,
| For as Jonas was three days and three
nights in the whales belly, so shall the
! Son Of Man be three days and three nights
| in the heart of the earth" And that settles
it fer me and for any man who docs not
believe Christ u dupe and an imposter.
Notice also how the Old Testament writ
ers drew simlitude from the fisheries. Jore-
miah uses such imagery to prophesy de
struction, Behold, | will send for many
fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish
! them" Ezekiel uses fish imagery to proph-
] y,
the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi
even to En-eglaim; they shall be place to
spread forth nets; their fish shall be accord
ing to their kinds as the fish of the great
sea, exceeding many" the explanation of
! which is that Nn-gedi and En-eglaim stood
on The banks of the Dead sea, in the waters
of which no fish can live, but the prophet
SAYS that tho time will come when these
waters will be rcgenerated and they will be
great places for fish.
Amos rcprovcs idolatries 10y saying, 1.-The
day shall come upon you when he will take
you away with hooks and your posterity
with hshhooks" Solomon, in Ecclesiastes,
declares that those captured of temptation
are as fishes taken in an evil net. Indeed
solomon knew all about the f1nny tribe and
wrote treatise on ichthyology which has
been lost.
How ST. PETER FIsHED.
Furthermore, in order that you may I'M
dcrstand the ichthyology Of the Bible you
I must know that there were five ways of
fishing One was by fence of reeds and
canes. within which the fish were caught
But the lIerodic government forbade that
| on Lake Galilee, lest pleasure boats be
wrecked BY the stakes driven. Another
mode was L. spcarng-the waters of Cali
lee so clear, good aim could be taken for
the transfiXing. Another was by hook and
line, as where Isaiah says THE fishers also
shall mourn, and they that cast angle
into the brook shall lament" And job says,
"Canst thou draw out leviathan with Il
hook" And Habakkuk says, They take
up all of them with the angle"
Another mode was by a casting net or
that which was flung from the shore; an
other, by a dragnet or that which was
i
sea as the fishing smack sailed on. How
wonderful all this is nwrought into the
Bible imagery, and it leads me to ask in
which mode are you and | fishing, for the
church is the boat, and the gospel is the net,
and the sea is the world, and the fish are
the souls, and God addresses us as he did
Simon and Andrew, saying, Follow me,
and will make you fishes of men" But
when is the best time to fish for souls? In
the night. Peter, why did you say to Christ,
I'VE have toiled all the night and have
taken nothing" Why did you not fish in
the daytime! He replies, You ought to
know that the night is the best time for
fishing
AT Tobyhanna Mills, among the noun
tains of Pennsylvania, | saw friend with
high boots and fishing tackle starting out
at 30 clock at night, and said, "Where are
you Coing:' He answered. Going to fish. "
"What, in the night" He answered, Yes,
in the night" 80 the vast majority OF
souls captured for God are taken in times
of revival in the night meetings. They
might just as we'll come at II o'clock at
noon, but most of them will not. Ask the
evangelists of olden times, ask Finney, ask
Nettleton, ask Osborn, ask Daniel Baker,
and then ask all the modern evangelsts
which is the best time to gather souls, and
they will answer, The night; by all odds,
the night" Not only the natural night,
but the night Of trouble
Suppose | 90 around in this audience and
ask these Christians when they were con-
verted to God One would answer, 1T was
at the time | lost my child by membranous
Group, and it was the night of bereave-
ment," or the answer would be, ut was
just after was swindled out of my prop
erty, and it was the night of bankruptcy
or it would be, 1T was during that time
when | was down with that awful sickness,
and it was the night of physical suffering"
or it would be, 1T was THAI time when
Islander took after me- and l was maligned
and abused and it was the night of perse-
cuton." All, my hearers, that is the time
for you to 90 after souls, when night OF
trouble is on them. Miss not that oppor-
tunity to save Il soul, for it is the best of all
opportunities.
Go up along the Mohawk, or the Juniata
or the Delaware, or the Tombigbee, or the
St. Lawrence right after rain, and you
will find the fishermen all up and down the
banks. Why? Because a good time To
angle is right after the rain, and that is a
good time to catch souls, right after a
shower of misfortune, right after floods OF
disaster. And as pool overshadowed