Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1895-05-06

and sing without any acceptance All
your creeds and Hturgies and sacra-
ments and genufectiOns and religious
convocations amount to nothing unless
YOUR heart life go into them. When that
bronzed slave took from the presence of
PLATE that wash basin, he carried away
none of Pilates cruelty, or Pilates
wiclzedness, or Pilates guilt.
Nothing against creeds; we all have
them. either written or implied. Moth
ing against ceremonies; they are of in
finite importance Nothing against sac
raments; they are divinely commanded.
! Nothing against rosary, II there be as
many heartfelt prayers as beads counted.
Nothing against incense floating up from
censor amid Gothic arches, if the pray
ers be as genuine as the aroma is sweet
Nothing against Epiphany or Lent or Ash
Wednesday or Easter or Good Friday or
! Whitsuntide or Palm Sunday, if these
symbols have behind them genuine re-
| pentance, and holy "Reminiscences, and
Christian conservation. But ceremony is
only the sheath to the sword, it is only
the shell to the kernel, it is only the
lamp to the fame, it is only the body to
the spirit The outward must be sym
by all means; but, more than all, wash
the heart
The Voice of God.
Behold, also, as you see Governor
POntius PLATE thrust his hand into this
wash basin, the power of conscience
He had an idea there was blood on his
hand-the blood Of an innocent person,
whom he might have acquitted if he
only had the courage Poor PLATE! His
conscience was after him, and he knew
the stain would lever be washed from
the right hand or the left hand, and I'M
til the day of his death, though he might
wash in all the LAYERS of the Roman en-
pire, there would be still eight fingers
and two thumbs red at the tips.
Oh, the power of conscience when it
is fully aroused With whip Of scorpions
over a bed of spikes in pitch of midnight
it chases guilt. Are there ghosts? Yes,
not of the graveyard, but Of ones mind
not at rest.
And thus Brutus, amid his slumbering host,
Startled with Caesars stalwart ghost
Macbeth looked at his hand after the
midnight assassination, and he says:
viii all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will
rather
The multitudiinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
For every sin, great or small, con-
science, which is the voice of God, has
reproof, more or less emphatic. Charles
TX, responsible for ST. Bartholomew
massacre, was chased by the bitter mem
cries, and in his dying moment said to
his doctor, Ambrose Parry: Doctor, [
dom know what's the matter with me.
1 am in a fever of body and mind and
have been for long while. Oh, if L had
only spared the innocent and the imbe
Gle and the cripple!' Rousseau de-
clared in old age that a sin he commit
ted in his youth still gave him sleepless
nights. Charles Ii of Spain could not
sleep unless he had in the room con-
fessor and two friars Catiline had such
bitter memories he was startled at the
least sound. Cardinal Beaufort, having
slain the Duke of Gloucester, often in
the night would say: "Away, away
Why do you look at me?'' Richard ILL.,
having slain his two nephews, would
sometimes in the night shout from his
couch and clutch his sword, fighting APP
partitions. Dr.. Webster, having slain
Parkman in Boston, and while waiting |
for his doom, complained to the jailer
that the prisoners on the other side of
the wall all night long kept charging
him with his crime, when there We're no
prisoners on the other side Of the wall.
1t was the voice of his own conscience.
From what did Adam and Eve try to
hide when they had all the world to
themselves? From their own conscience.
What made Cain s punishment greater
than he could bear? His conscience.
What made Ahab cry out to the prophet,
F'Hast thou found me, 0 mine enemy?"
What made the great Felix tremble be-
fore the little missionary? Conscience.
What made Belshazzar's teeth chatter
with chill when he saw a finger come
out Of the black sleeve Of the midnight
and write on the plastering? Conscience,
conscience.
Pricked by Conscience.
Why is it that that man in this audi
ence with all the marks Of worldly pros
perity upon him is agitated while I
speak and is now flushed and is now
pale, and then the breath is uneven, and
then beads of perspiration on the fore
head, and then the look of unrest comes
to look of horror and despair? I know
not. But he knows, and God knows. Tt
may be that he despoiled fair young
wife and turned innocence into a waif
and the smile Of hope into the brazen
laughter of despair. Or it may be that
he has in his possession the property of
others, and by some stratagem he keeps
it according to law, and yet he knows it
is not his own, and that if his heart
should stop beating this moment he
would be in hell forever. Or it may be
he is responsible for great mystery,
the disappearance of some one who was