Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1894-03-15

men to fast" Hypocrisy having taken
possession of the soul. it Immediately
appears in the countenance. Hypo
critics are always solemn They carry
several country graveyards in their
faces. They are fearful when there is
nothing to cry about, and in their
prayers they catch for their breath,
and have such general dolefnlness that
they disgust young people with rell-
gion. We had one of them in one of
my churches. When he exhorted he
always deplored the low state of reli-
gion in other people, and when he
prayed it was an attack of hysteria,
and he went into a paroxysm of obs
and abs that seemed to demand resus-
citation. He went ON in that way un-
til we had to expel him from church
for stealing the property entrusted to
him as administrator and for other
vices that will not mention, and he
wrote me several letters not at all
complimentary from the west saying
that he was daily praying for my ever
lasting destruction. A man cannot
have hypocrisy in his heart without
somehow showing it in his face. All
intelligent people who witness it know
1t is nothing but dramatization.
Here comes another chisel, and that
belongs TO the old-fashioned religion.
1t first takes possession Of the whole
soul, washing ont its sins by the blood
of the Lamb and starting heaven right
there and then. This done deep down
in the heart, religion says "Now let
me go up to the windows and front
gate Of the face and set up some signal
that / have taken possession of this
castle, / viii celebrate the victory by
an illumination that no one can mis-
take. 1 have made this man happy
and now | viii make him look happy
] will draw the corners of his mouth
as far up as they were drawn down. !
will take the contemptuous curl away
from the lip and nostril / will make
his eyes fash and his cheeks glow at
every mention of Christ and heaven.
will make even the wrinkles of his face
look like burrows plowed for the har-
vests of joy / win make what we call
the crows feet around his temples
suggestive that the dove of peace has
been alighting there" There may be
signs Of trouble in that face, but trou-
Bile sanetified. There may be scars of
battle on that face, but they will be
scars Of campaigns won.
Now, says some one, Il know very
good people who have no such religion
in their faces Ny friend, the reason
probably is that they were not con-
verted until late in life. Worldliness
and sin had been at work with their
chisels on that face for thirty or forty
years, and Grace, the divine sculptress,
has been busy with her ehisel only five
or ten years. Do not be surprised that
Phidias and Greenough with t1eir fine
chisels cannot in a short while remove
all the marks of the stonemason' 5 crow
bar which has been busy there for a
long while. | say to all the young, if
you would have sympathetic face,
hopeful face, courageous face, cheerful
face. kind face, at the earliest possible |
moment, by the grace of God, have
planted in your soul sympathy. and |
hope, and courage, and good cheer and |
kindness. No man ever INDUCED a
gracious feeling or was moved by a |
righteous Indignation, or was stirred |
by benevolent impulse, but its effect /
was more or less indicated in the conn |
while David noticed the phys
effect of bad disposition |
when he said: "A wicked man harden
eth his face, and jeremiah must have /
noticed it when he said of the cruel.
They have made their faces harder
than rock o, the power OF the
human face, | warrant that you have
known faces SO magnetic and impress
sive that, though they have vanished
long ago they still holi you with a
holy spell How long since vour child
went2 well, you say, If she had
lived she would have been ten years odd
now, or twenty, or thirty years. But
does not that infant face still have ten
der supremacy over your entire nature?
During many an eventide does il not
look at you? In your dreams do you
not see it? What sanctifying hal
lowing intluenceit has been in your
life. You can say in the words of the
than never to have loved at all. Or
i may have been sisters face Per
laps she was the invalid of the family
She never went out except on
very clear days, and then she had to be
carried down the stairs to the piazza
Or for short ride, but she was SO
patient and cheerful under ii all. As
hat face looks at you through the
-ears with what an elevated and
emotion you are filed. Or.
vas it fathers face2 The storms Of
life had somewhat roughened it. A
rood deal of the brightness of the eye
lad been quenehed, and the ear was
urned with the hand behind it in
rider to hear at all But you remem-
,er that face so wildly that if You
we're an artist you could put it on
anvas, and it would mean to you more
han any face that Rembrandt ever
ketched That face, though long ago
-asled from human sitrht X as talafn IN |