Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-09-03
THE GREAT RESCUE.
PEACEFUL DE ATH AND BLISSFuL
ETERNITY COST NOTHING.

of Agcs-The Lamp Above the Grave.
mage, who is still absent in the south
Pacific, has selected as the subject of
today's sermon through the press 1.-THE
Rescue" the text chosen being Acts
xvi, 81, "Believe ON the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved"
Jails are dark, dull, damp, loathsome
places even now, but they were worse in
the apostolic times. I imagine today we
are standing in the Philippian dungeon.
Do you not feel the chill? Do you not
hear the groans of those incarcerated ones
who for 10 years have not seen the sun
light and the deep sigh of women who
remember their fathers house and
mourn over their wasted estates? Listen
again. 1t is the cough of a consumptive
or the struggle of one in the nightmare
of great horror You listen again and
hear a culprit, his chains rafting as he
rolls over in his dreams, and you say,
'fGod, pity the prisonerp' But there is
another sound in that prison. 1t is the
song of joy and gladness. What place
to sing in! The music comes winding
through the corridors of the prison, and
in all the dark wards the whisper is
heard: whats that? What's that?''
1t is the song of Paul and Silas. They
cannot sleep They have been whipped
very badly whipped. The long gashes
on their backs are bleeding yet. They
lie fiat on the cold ground, their feet
fast in wooden sockets, and of course
they cannot sleep. But they can sing.
Jailer, what are you doing with these
people? Why have they been put in
here? Oh, they have been trying to
make the world better. Is that all? That
is all. A pit for Joseph. A lions cave
for Daniel. A blazing furnace for Shad-
rach. Clubs for John Wesley. An
anathema for Philip Melanchthon. A
dungeon for Paul and Silas.
An Earthquake Shock.
But while we are standing in the
gloom of the Philippian dungeon, and
we hear the mingling voiSes of sob and
groan and blasphemy and halleluiah,
suddenly an earthquake! The iron bars
of the prison twist, the pillars crack off,
the solid masonry begins to heave, and
all the doors swing open. The jailcr,
feeling himself responsible for these
prisoners and believing, in his pagan
Ignorance, suicide to be honorable
since Brutus killed himself, and Cato
killed himself, and Cassius killed him
self-puts his sword to his own heart,
proposing with one strong, keen thrust
to put an end to his excitement and agi-
tation. But Paul cries out: 'tStop, stop!
Do myself no harm! We are all herep'
Then 1 see the jailer running through
the dust and amid the ruin of that pris-
I L
down at the feet of these prisoners, cry
ing out: ''What shall / do? What shall
I do?' Did Paul answer: "Get out of
this place before there is another earth
quake Put handouts and hopples on
these other prisoners lest they get
away?" No~Nord of that kind. His
compact, thrilling, tremendous answer,
answer memorable all through earth
and heaven, was, 'Believe on the Lord |
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved"
Well, we have all read of the earth
quake in Lisbon, in Lima, in Aleppo |
and in Caracas, but we live in q lati-
tude where in all our memory there has
not been one severe volcanic disturb
ance. And yet we have seen so earth |
quakes. Hero is q man who has been |
building up q large fortune. His bid On
the money market was felt in all the |
cities. He thinks he has got beyond all |
annoying rivalries in trade, and he says |
to himself, CHOW am free and safe
from all possible perturbation. But in
1857 or in 1878 national panic strikes
the foundation of the commercial world,
and crash goes all that magnificent bust
ness establishment!
Here is man who has built upa very
beautiful home. His daughters have
Just come home from the seminary with
diplomas of graduation. His sons have
started in life, honest, temperate and
pure. When the evening lights are
struck, there is a happiness and TN
broken familycircle. But there has been
an accident down at Long Branch. The
young man ventured too far out in the
surf. The telegraph hurled the terror
up to the city. An earthquake struck
under the foundation of that beautiful
home.
Trust and Believe.
The piano closed; the curtains drop
ped; the laughter hushed. Crash go all
those domestic hopes and prospects and
So, my friends, we have
all felt the shaking down of some great
trouble, and there was time when we
were as much excited as this man of the
text, and we cried out as he did: "What
shall do? What shall do?'' The same
reply that the apostle made to him is
appropriate to us, Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.'
There are some documents of so little
that you do not care to put
any more than your last name under
them, or even your initials, but there
are some documents of SO great impor-
tance that you write out your full name.
So the Saviour in some parts of the