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

impressive that 1t led me into the king
dom Of God ana decided my destiny for
this world and the next, You will, be-
fore "a hours 60 by. meet some man or
woman with big pack Of care and troll.
BILE, and you may say something to him
/ or her that will endure until this world
shall have been so far lost in the past
that nothing but the stretch Of angelic
memory will be able to realize that it
ever existed at all.
am not talking of remarkable men
and women, but Of what ordinary folks
can do. am not speaking Of the phoss
phUrescenee in the wake of a Campania,
but Of the phosphorescence in the track
Of Newfoundland fishing smack. God
makes thunderbolts out of sparks, and
cut Of the small words and deeds of q
small life he can launch power that
will flash and burn and thunder through
the eternities.
How do you like this prolongation Of
your earthly life by deathless influenced
Many babe that died at 8 months of
age by the anxiety created in the parents
heart to meet that child in realms Sc
raphic is living yet in the transformed
heart and life Of those parents and will
live on forever in the history of that
family. If this be the opportunity of or
binary souls, what Is the opportunity Of
those who have especial intellectual or
social or monetary equipment?
Have you any arithmetic capable of es-
timatihg the influence Of our good and
gracious friend who few days ago went
up to rest-George W. Childs of Phila-
delphia? From a newspaper that was
printed for 30 years without one word of
defamation or scurrility or scandal, and
putting chief emphasis on virtue and
charity and clean intelligence, he reaped
a fortune for himself and then distrib-
nted vast amount of it among the poor
and struggling, putting his invalid and
aged reporters on pensions, until his
name stands everywhere for large heart
edness and sympathy and help and high
est style Of Christian gentleman.
In an era which had in the chairs of
its journalism Horace Greeley. and a
Henry ]. Raymond, and James Gordon
Bennett; and an Erastus Brooks, and a
George William Curtis, and an Irenaeus
Prime, none of them will be longer re-
membered than George w. Childs. Stay
ing away from the unwilling of the mon
ument he had reared at large expense in
our Greenwood IN memory of Professor
Proctor, the astronomer, lest l should
say something in praise of the man who
had paid for the monument. By all &C
knowledged a representative of the high.
est American journalism.
If you would calculate his influence
for good, you must count how many
sheets Of his newspapers have been pub
lished in the last quarter of century,
and how many people have read them,
and the effect, not only upon those read
ers, but upon all whom they shall influ-
ence for all time, while you add to all
that the work of the churches he helped
build and of the institutions of mercy he
helped found. Better give up before you
start the measuring of the phosphores-
cence in the wake of that ship Of the Ce-
lestial line. Who can tell the post NOR
tenn influence of Savonarola, Win
ielried, Gutenberg, Marlborough, a
Decatur, a Toussaint, Bolivar, a Clark
gon, Robert Raikes, Harlan Page,
Who had 1876 Sabbath scholars, "a of
whom became Christians, and six of them
ministers of the gospel.
THE BRIGHT PATH.
With gratitude and penitence and wor-
ship mention the grandest life that was
ever lived. That ship Of light was
launched from the heavens nearly 1900
years ago, angelic hosts chanting, and
| from the celestial wharves the ship
sprang into the toughest sea that ever
tossed. Its pillows were made up Of the
wrath Of men and devils, Herodic and
sanhedrinic prosecutions stirring the
deep with red wrath, and all the hurri-
canes of woe smete it until on the rocks
of Golgotha that life struck with re-
sound Of agony that appalled, the eartl
and the heavens. But in the wake O.
that life what phosphorescer1ce o.
smiles on the cheeks Of souls pardoned
and lives reformed, and nations re
deemed. The millennium itself is onl.
one roll of that irradiatsd wave Of glad
ness and benediction. In the sublimes
of all senses it may be said of him, "H
maketh path to shine after him."
But cannot look upon that luminosi
| ty that follows ships without realizing
how fond the Lord is Of life. That fir
of the deep is life. myriads Of creature
all a-swim and a-play and a-romp il
parks of marine beauty laid out and par
tered and roseated and blossomed b,
Omnipotence. What is the use Of thos
creatures called by the naturalists "crus
taceans" and "oopepodsj" not more thai
one out of hundreds of billions of *hicl
are ever seen by human eyer God Gre
ated them for the same reason that h
creates flowers in places where no hu
man foot ever makes them tremble, an
no human nostril ever inhales their redo
lence, and no human eye ever sees thei
charm. In the botanical world the
prove that God loves flowers, as in tn
marine world the phosphori prove tina
he loves life, and he loves life in play
life in brilliancy of gladness, life In ez
uberance.
/ And SO / am led to believe that h
loves our life if we fulfill our mission q
fully as the phosphori fulfill theirs. TIL
son of God came that we might hay
life and have it more abundantly." Blu
fa1fi glad to tell you that our God is nc
the God sometimes described as HAIRS
critic at the head of the universe, or a
infinite scold, or God that loves funel
ais better than weddings, or God tina
prefers tears to laughter, an omnipoten
Nero, ferocious Mana Sahib, but tn
loveliest Being in the universe, lovin
flowers and life and play, whether {
phosphori in the wake of the Majestic c
of the human race keeping holiday.
LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE.
But mark you that the phosphorescenc
has glow that the night monopolize
and ask you not only what kind of il
iluence you. are going to leave in I'll
world as you pass through it, but whf
light are you going to throw across til
worlds night of sin and sorrow2 Poop
who are sailing on smooth sea and at noe
do not need much sympathy, but whs