Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-02-26

it's name is hypocrisy. Christ with one
terrific stroke in his sermon on the
mount described this character, "When
We fast, be not as the hypocrites, of
sad countenance, for they disfigure their
faces that they may appear unto men to
fast. Hypocrisy having taken possess
sion of the soul, it Immediately appears
in the countenance. Hypocrites are al
ways solemn. They carry several coun-
try 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
dolefulness that they disgust young peo-
pie with religion. We had one of them
in one of my churches. When he ex-
orted, he always deplorea the low state
of religion 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 resuscitation.
He went on in that way until we had to
expel him from the church for stealing
the property intrusted to him as admin
lstratOr and for other vices that L will
not mention, and he wrote me several
letters not at all complimentary from
the west, saying that he was daily
praying for my everlasting destruction.
A man cannot have hypocrisy in his
heart without somehow showing it in
his face. All intelligent people who
witness it know it is nothing but a
dramatiZation.
Here comes another chisel, and that
belongs to the Ole fashioned religion.
1t first takes possession of the whole
soul, washing out its sins by the blood
of the Lamb and starting heaven right
there and then. This done, deep down in
the heart religions says: Nov 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. |
will celebrate the victory by an illumi-
nation that nc one can mistake. L have
made this man happy, and now L will
make him look happy. L will draw the
corners of his mouth as far up as they
We're drawn down. l will take the con-
temrtuous curl away from the lip and
nostril. I Will make his eyes flash and
his cheeks glow at every mention of
Christ and heaven. | will make even
the wrinkles of his face look like fur
rows pJowed for the harvest of joy. l
will make what we call the crows
the dove of peace has been alighting
there" There may be signs of trouble
on that face, but trouble sanctiied.
There may be scars of battle on that face,
but they will be scars of campaigns.
won.
POWER OF a FACE.
Now, says some one, Il know very
good people who have no such religion
in their faces My friend, the reason
probably is that they were not converted
until late in life. WorIdliness and Sin
had been at work with their chisels on
that face for 80 or 40 years, and Grace,
the divine sculptures, has been busy with
her chisel only five or ten years. Do not
be surprised that Phidias and Green
Ough with their fine chisels cannot in a
short while remove all the marks of the
stone mason's crowbar, which has been
busy there for a long while. l say to |
all the young, IT you would have sym
pathetic face, hopeful face, courageous |
face, cheerful face, kind face, at the |
earliest possible moment by the grace
of God have planted in your soul SYM
pathy and hope and courage and good |
cheer and kindness. No man ever in
dulged gracious feeling or was moved /
by righteous indignation or was stirred |
by benevolent impulse but its effect /
was more or less indicated in the coun-
tenance, while David noticed the physi-
ognom1c effect of a bad disposition when
he said "A wicked man hardeneth his /
face, ard jeremiah must have noticed
it when he said of the cruel, They /
have made their faces harder than Il
rock.
Oh, the power of the human face.
warrant that you have known faces SO
magnetic and impressive that, though
they vanished long ago, they still hold
you with holy spell. How long since
your child went? We'll, T" you say, "if
she had lived she would have been 10
years old now, or 90 or 80 years. But
does not that infant face still have ten
der supremacy over your entire nature?
During many an eventide does it not
look at you? In your dreams do you not
see it? What a sanctifying, ballOwing
influence it has been in your life! You
can say in the words OF the poet, Bet
ter to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all. Or it may have
been sisters face. Perhaps she was
the invalid of the family. Pc haps she
never went out except on very clear
days, and then she had to be carried
down the stairs to the piazza or foI "a
short ride, but she was SO patient and
cheerful under it all. AS Tat face looks
at you through the years with what an
elevated and heavenly emotion you are
filled. Or was it father face? The
storms of life had somewhat Ioughened
it. A good deal of the brightness of
the eye had been quenched, and the ear
was turned with the hand behind it in
order to hear at all. But you remember
that face SO wildly that if you were an