The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1894-02-23


6rmly on either side Of 1t, and watering
It In dry weather, and taking a great
care in its culture, and he never plucks
any fruits from its bough, But his chill
dren will. We are all planting trees
that will yield fruit hundreds of years
after we are dead-orchards of golden
fruit or groves Of deadly upas.
am so fascinated with the phoephor-
escence in the track of a ship thai have
sometimes watched for long while and
have seen nothing on the face of the deep
bnt blackness. The mouth of watt =
chasms that looked like gaping jaws %
hell. Not spark as big as the fret );
not white scroll of surf; not a taper TO
illuminate the mighty sepulchers of dec
ships; darkness s, 900 feet deep, and moro
thousands of feet long and wide. That
is the kind Of wake that a bad man leaves
behind him as he plows through the
ocean of this life toward the vaster ocean
of the great future.
THE GROWTH OF SIN.
Now, suppose man seated In cor
ner grocery or business Office among
clerks gives himself to jolly skepticism.
He laughs at the Bible, makes sport of
the miracles, speaks of perdition in
jokes and laughs at revivals as frolic,
and at the passage of a funeral process
sion, which always solemnizes sensible
people, says, "Boys, let's take drink"
There Is in that group young man who
is making great struggle against temp.
tation and prays night and morning and
reads his Bible and is asking God for
help day by day. But that guffaw
against Christianity makes him lose his
grip of sacred things, and he gives up
Sabbath and church and morals and
goes from bad to worse, till he falls I'M
der designations, dies in lazar house
and is buried in the potter's field.
Another young man who heard that
jolly skepticism made up his mind that
''it makes no difference what we do or
say, for We will all come out at last at the
right place." and began as a consequence
to purloin. Some money that came into
his hands for others he applied to his
own uses, thinking perhaps he would
make 1t straight come other time, and
all would be we'll even II he did not
make it straight. He ends in the peni-
Tertiary. That scoffer who uttered the
jokes against Christianity never realized
what bad work he was doing, and he
passed on through life and out Of it and
into future that am not now going to
depict.
do not propose with searchlight to
SHOW the breakers of the awful coast on
which that ship is wrecked, for my bust
ness now is to watch the sea after the
keel has plowed it. No phosphorescence
in the wake of that ship, but behind it
two souls struggling in the wave-two
young men destroyed by reckless skep-
ticism, an uni]lumined ocean beneath
and on all sides Of them. Blackness of
darkness.
You know what gloriously good man
Rev John Newton was the most of his
life, but before his conversion he was q
very wicked sailor, and on board the ship
Harwich instilled infidelity and vice in
the mind of young man-principles
which destroyed him. Afterward the
two met, and Newton tried to undo his
bad work, but in vain. The young man
became worse and worse and died prof
ligste, horrifying with his profanities
those who stood by him in his last mo-
ments.
Better leok ont what bad influence
you start, for you may not be able to
stop it. 1t does not require very great
force to ruin others. Why was it that
many years ago great food nearly de-
stroyed New Orleans? A crawfish had
burrowed into the banks of the river un-
til the ground was saturated and the
banks weakened until the food burst.
THE SHINING PATH.
But l find here man who starts out
in life with the determination that he will
never see suffering but he will try to al
leviate it, and never see encouragement
but he will try to cheer it, and never
meet with anybody but he will try to do
him good. Getting his strength from
God, he starts from home with high pur-
pose of doing all the good he can possibly
do III one day.
Whether standing behind the counter,
or talking in the business Office with pen
behind his ear, or making bargain with a
fellow trader, or out in the fields discuss.
ing with his next neighbor the wisest ro-
tation of the crops, or in the shoemake,'s
shop pounding sole leather, there is some
thing in his face, and in his phrase
0logy, and in his manner, that demon
strates the grace of God in his heart He
can talk Oh religion without awkwardly
dragging it in by the ears. He loves God
and loves the souls of all whom he meets
and is interested in their present and
sternal destiny.
| For so or 60 years he lives that kind of
life and then gets through with itand
goes into h, wen ransomed soul. But
am not going to describe the port into
which that ship has entered.
am not going to describe the Pilot
who met him outside at the ''lightship.
am not going to say anything about the
crowds of friends who met him on the
crystalline wharves up which he goes on
steps Of chrysoprases. For God in his
words to Job calls me to look at the patti
of foam in the wake of that ship, and
tell you it is all a-gleam with splendorl
of kindness done, and rolling with il
lumined tears that were wiped away
and a-dash with congratulations, ant
clear out to the horizon in all directions
is the sparkling, flashing, billowing phos
phorescence Of Christian life. III,
maketh path to shine after him."
And here correct one of the mean no
tons which at some time takes posses
zion of all of US, and that is as to tn,
brevity of human life. When I bur,
some very useful map. clerical or lay, il
his thirtieth or fortieth year, l say
What waste of energiesl 1t wa
hardly worth while for him to get read,
for Christian work, for he had SO sool
to quit it." But the fact is that ma,
insure any man or woman who does an,
good on large or small scale for lif
Oh earth as long as the world lasts. Sick
ness. trolley car accidents, death itself
can no more destroy his Life than the.
can tear down one of the rings of Sat
urn. You can start one good word, on
kind act, one cheerful smile, on mis-