Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1895-08-05


hurricanel How long have I been sleep
ing? Whole days and months and years
I am quite awake now L see every
thing. but it is too late. " Invisible
hands take him up. He struggles to get
loose. In vain. They bring his soul to
the verge. They let 1t down over the
side The wtsds howl. The sea opens
its frothing jaws to swallow. He has
gone forever. And while the canvas
cracked, and the yards ratified, and the
roDes thumped, the sea took up the flu
neral dirge, playing with open diapason
of midnight storm, Because I have
called, and ye refused, I have stretched
out nv hand and no man regarded. bat
ye have set at naught all my counsel and
would none Of my reproof, also will
laugh at your calamity, I will mock
when your fear cometh. -
Now, lest any of you should make
this mistake,I address you in the words
of the Mediterranean sea captain:
"What meanest thou, 0 sleeper? Arise,
call upon thy God, if SO be that God
will think upon us, that we perish
not. - If you have God, you had better
call upon him. Do you say, st have no
God?" Then you had better call upon
your fathers God. When your father
was in trouble, whom did he fly to? You
heard him in his old days tell about
some terrible exposure in q snowstorm,
or at sea, or in battle, or among mid
night garroters, and how he escaped.
Perhaps 20 years before you were born
your father made sweet acquaintance
with God. There IS something in the
worn pages of the ca bic he used to read
which makes you think your father had
a God In the old religious books lying
around the house, here are passages
marked with a lead pencil-passage
that make you think sSur father was
not a goddess man, but that, on that
dark day when he lay i'll thcback room
dying he was ready-all ready. But
perhaps your father was a bad man
prayerless and blasphemere-and you
never think of him now without a shud-
der. He worshiped the world or his
own appetites. Do not then, beg of
you, call upca your fathers God, but
call on your mothers God. [ think she
was good. You remember when your IA
ther came home drunk late on cold
night, how patient your mother was.
You often heard her pray. She used to
sit by the hour meditating as though
she were thinking of some good warm
place, where it never gets cold, and
where the bread does not fail, and stag
gering steps never come. You remem-
Der her now as she sat in cap and spec
tacles reading her Bible Sunday after
noon. What good advice she used to
give you How black and terrible the
hole in the ground looked to you when
with two ropes they let her down to rest
in the graveyard All, [ think from
your looks that I am on the right track
Awake, O sleeper, and call upon thy
mothers God.
But perhaps both your father and
mother were depraved. Perhaps your
cradle was rocked by sin and shame,
and it is wonder that from such a
you have come to respectable
ity. Then don't call upon the God of
either of your parents, | beg of you.
The God of Thy Children.
But you have children. You know
rounded those healthy limbs and set
beating within their breast an immor-
tally Perhaps in the belief that some
how it would be for the best you have
taught them to say an evening prayer,
and when they kneel beside you and
fold their little hands and look up,
their faces all innocence and love, you
know that there is God somewhere
about in the room.
I think [ am on the right track at
last. Awake, O sleeper, and call upon
the God of thy children May he set
these little ones to pulling at thy heart
until they charm thee to the same God
to whom tonight they will say their lit
tie prayers
But, alas, alas, some of these men
and women are unmoved by the fact
that their father had God. that their
mother had God, and their children
have a God, but they have no God. All
the divine goodness for nothing. All
warning for nothing. They are sound
asleep in the side of the ship, though
the sea and sky are in mad wrestle
Many years ago man, leaving his
family in Massachusetts,, sailed from
Boston to China to trade there On the
coast of China in the midst of night of
storm he made shipwreck. The adven-
turer was washed up on the beach sense
less-all his money gone. He had to beg
in the streets Of Canton to keep from
starving. For two years there was no
communication between himself and
family. They supposed him dead He
knew not but that his family were dead.
He had gone out as a captain. He was
too proud to come back as private sail
or. But after awhile he choked down
his pride and sailed for Boston. Arriv-
ing there, he took an evening train for
the center of the state, where he had
left his family. Taking the stage from
the depot and riding score of miles, he
got home. He says that, going up in
front &c tho ncttorro IL, tho hniorl,4 -A.,o.o,,