The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1895-09-27
warning and would have gone crashing
into the breakers.

warning and would have gone crashing
into the breakers
No Need of Fear.
Again, my subject teaches me that
good people sometimes get very much
frightened. From the tone and manner
of these disciples as they rushed into
the stern of the vessel and woke Christ
up, you know that they are fearfully
scared. And so it is now that you often
find good people wildly agitated. "OhP'
says some Christian man, "the infidel
magazines, the bad newspapers, the
spiritualistic societies, the importation
of so many foreign errors, the church of
God is going to be lost, the ship is going
to founder The ship is going down 7"
What are you frightened about? An old
lion goes into his cavern to take sleep,
and he lies down until his shaggy name
covers his paws. Meanwhile the spiders
outside begin to spin webs over the
mouth of his cavern and say, "That lion
cannot break out through this web, ,"
and they keep OH spinning the gossamer
threads until they get the mouth of the
cavern covered over "Now," they say,
"the lion s done, the lions done" Aft
er awhile the lion awakes and shakes
himself, and he walks out from the
cavern, never knowing there were any
spiders webs, and with his voice he
shakes the mountain. Let the infidels
and the skeptics of this day go on spin
ming their webs, spinning their infidel
gossamer theories, spinning them all
over the place where Christ seems to be
sleeping They say: "Christ can never
again come out. The work is DONE He
can never get through this logical web
we have been spinning" The day will
come when the Lion of Judah's tribe
will rouse himself and come forth and
shake nightly the nations, What then
all your gossamer threads? What is
spiders web to an aroused lion? Do not
fret, then, about the world S going back
ward. 1t is going forward.
You stand on the banks of the sea
when the tide is rising. The almanac
says the tide is rising, but the wave
comes up to certain point and then it
recedes. "Why," you say, "the tide is
going back" No, it is not. The next
wave comes up little higher, and it
goes back. Again you say the tide is 60
ing out. And the next time the wave
comes to a higher point, and then to a
higher point. Notwithstanding all these
recessions at last all the shipping of the
world knows it is high tide. So it is
with the cause of Christ in the world.
One year it comes up to one point, and
we are greatly encouraged. Then it
seems to go back next year, Wesay the
tide is going out. Next year it comes to
higher point and falls back, and next
year it comes to still higher point and
falls back, but all the time it is advanc-
ing, until it shall be full tide, "and the
earth shall be full of the knowledge Of
God as the waters fill the sea. "
"Ecce Deus"
Again, learn from this subject that
Christ is God and man in the same per-
son. 1 go into the back part of that boat,
and look on Christ's sleeping face and
see in that face the story of sorrow and
WEAKNESS, and a deeper shadow comes
over his face, and I think he must be
dreaming of the cross that is to come.
AS stand on the back part of the boat
looking on his face I say: "He is man
He is a man !" But when l see him
come to the Prov Of the boat, and the
sea kneels in his presence, and the
winds fold their wings at his command,
I say: HE is God He is God !" The
hand that set up the stormy pillars of the
universe wiping away the tears of an
orphan When I want pity and sympa-
thy, go into the back part of this boat,
and 1 look at him, and 1 say: 80 Lord
Jesus, thou weary One, thou suffering
One, have mercy on me'' 'Ecce no
mo-" Behold the man! But when
want courage for the conflict of life,
when l want some one to beat down my
enemies, when want faith for the great
future, then l come to the front of the
boat and 1 see Christ standing there in
all his omnipotence, and l say, 80
Christ, thou who couldst hush the
storm can hush all my sorrows, all my
temptations, all my fears !" ''Ecce De-
usl'' Behold the God
The flushed Tempest.
learn also from this subject that
Christ can hush the tempest. Some Of
you, my hearers, have a heavy load Of
troubles. Some of you have wept until
you can weep no more. Perhaps God
took the sweetest child out OF your
house, the one that asked the most Gu
rious questions, the one that hung
around you with greatest fondness. The
gravedigger's spade cut down through
your bleeding heart. Or perhaps it was
the only one that you had, and your
soul has ever since been like a desolated
castle, where the birds of the night
boot amid the falling towers and along
the crumbling stairway. Or perhaps it
was an aged mother that was called
away. You used to send for her when
you had any kind of trouble She was
in your home to welcome your children
into life, when they died she was there
to pity you. You know that the old
hand will never do any more kindness
for you, and the lock of white hair that
you keep so well in the casket of the
locket does not look so we'll as it did on
the day when she moved it back from
the wrinkled forehead under the old
fashioned bonnet in the church in the