Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-03-13


Joshua. 'sWeH," says Joshua, ''if you
want the grapes, why don't you cross
over and get them?' There is river of
difficulty between us and everything that
is worth having. That which costs moth
ing is worth nothing.
God didn't intend this world for an
easy parlor, through which we are to be
drawn in rocking chair, but we are TO
work our passage, climb masts, fight
battles, scale mountains and ford rivers.
God makes everything valuable difficult
to get at, for the same reason that he put
the gold down in the mine and the pearl
clear down in the sea-1o make us dig
and dive for them. We acknowledge
this principle in worldly things; oh, that
we were only wise enough to acknowl-
edge it in religious things!
You have scores Of illustrations under
your own o. 1ervation where men have
had the hardest lot and been troddon
under feet. and yet after awhile had it
easy. Now their homes blossom and
bloom with pictures, and carpets that
made foreign looms laugh now embrace
their feet; the summer winds lift the
tapestry alb, ut the window gorgeous
enough for Turkish sultan; impatient
steeds paw and neigh at the door, their
carriages moving through the sea OF
New York life a very wave of splendor.
Who is it? Why, it is a boy who came
to New York with a dollar in his pocket
and all his estate slung over his shoulder
in cotton handkerchief. All that silver
on the dancing span is petrifed SWEET
drops; that beautiful dress is the faded
calico over which God put his hand of
perfection, t-,rning it to Turkish satin or
italian silk: those diamonds are the tears
which suffc1 ing froze as they fell Oh,
there is river of difficulty between us
and every earthly achievement. You
know that. You admit that.
You know this is so with regard to the
ACQUISITION of knowledge. The ancients
used to say that Vulcan struck Jupiter
on the head. and the goddess of wisdom
Jumped out, illustrating the truth that
wisdom comes by hard knocks. There
was river of difficulty between Shake
speare, the boy, holding the horses at the
door of the London theater, and that
Shakespeare, the great dramatist, VIII
ming the applause of all audiences by his
tragedies. There was river between
Benjamin Franklin, with loaf of bread
under his arm, walking the streets of
Philadelphia, and that same Benjamin
Franklin, the philosopher, just outside
of Boston flying kite in the thunder
storm.
An idler was cured of his bad habit by
looking through the window, night after
night, at a man who seemed sitting at
his desk turning off one sheet of writing
after another until almost the dawn of
the morning. The man sitting there
writing until morning was industrious
! Walter Scott; the man who looked at
him through the window was Lockhart,
! his illustrious biographer afterward
Lord Mansfield, pursued by the press and
by the populace, because of certain line
of duty, went on to discharge the duty,
and while the mob were around him de-
manding the taking of his life he shoe k
/ his fist in the face of the mob and said,
s'Sirs, when ones last end comes, it can
not come too soon if he falls in defense
of law and the liberty of his country"
And so there is, my friends, a tug, a
tussle, trial, a push, an anxiety,
through which every man must go be-
fore he comes to worldly success and
worldly achievement. You admit it.
gion. Eminent Christian character is
only gained by the Jordanic passage; no
man just happened to get good.
Why does that man know SO much
about the Scriptures? He was studying
the Bible while you were reading a
novel. He was on fire with the sublin1i-
ties of the Bible while you were sound
asleep; by tug, tussle, pushing and run
ming in the Christian life that man got
so strong for God; in hundred Softer
mos he learned how to fight; in hun
dred shipwrecks he learned how to swim.
Tears over sin, tears over lions desola-
ton, tears over the impenitent, tears
over the graves made, are the Jordan
which that man had passed. Sorrow
pales the cheek, and fades the eye, and
wrinkles the brow, and withers the hands
There are mourning garments in the
wardrobe, and there are deaths in every
family record: all around are the relics
of the dead.
THE JORDAN OF DEATH.
The Christian has passed the Red sea
of trouble, and yet he thinks there is 6
Jordan Of death between him and heav
en-. He comes down to that Jordan Of
death and thinks how many have beer
lost there. When Molyneu11 was explor
ing the Jordan in Palestine, he had his
boats all knocked to pieces in the rapids
of that river. And there are Il grea
many men who have gone down in the
river of death; the Atlantic and Pacific
have not swallowed so many 1t is al
awful thing TO make slipwrecks on thu
rock of ruin-masts falling, hurricane
flying, death coming, groanings in thu
water, meanings in the wind, thunder ii
the sky, while God, with the finger O
lightning writes all over the sky, Il vii
tread them in my wrath. and will tram
pie them III my fury"