Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1895-07-15

wasted, ana he strives TO get back his
early advantages Does he get them
| back-the days of boyhood, the days in
college, the days under his fathers roof?
ooh" he says, eff I could only get
those times back again, how I would
Improve them! !" Ny brother. you will
never get them back They are gone,
! gone. You may be very sorry about it,
and God may forgive, SO that you may
at last reach heaven, but you will never
get over some of the mishaps that have
come to your soul as result of you7,
neglect Of early duty. You may try to
undo it; you cannot undo it. When you
had a boys arms, and q boys eyes, ana
boys heart, you ought to have attend
ed to those things. A man says at so
years of age, 81 do wish I could get
over these habits of Incidence - When
did you get them? At 90 or % years of
! age. You cannot shake them off. They
will hang to you to the very day Of your
death. If young man through a long
course of evil conduct undermines his
physical health and then repents of it in
after life, the Lord may pardon him,
but that does not bring back good phys
ical condition. | said to minister of
the gospel one Sabbath at the close Of
the service, 'FWhere are you preaching
nOw?'' ooh, P" he says, ''I am not
preaching. [ am suffering from the phys
ical effects Of early sin. [ can't preach
now; I am sick A consecrated man
he now is, and he mourns bitterly over
early sins, but that does not arrest their
bodily effects.
The simple fact is that men and WON
en- often take 20 years Of their life to
build up influences that require all the
rest of their life to break down. Talk
about man beginning life when he is
81 years of age; talk about a woman be-
ginning life when she is Is years of age!
All, no! In many respects that is the
time they close life. In nine cases
out of ten all the questions of eternity
are decided before that. Talk about a
majority Of men getting their fortunes
between 80 and 40! They get or lose
fortunes between 10 and 30. When you
tell me that a man is just beginning
life, I tell you he is just closing it. The
next so years will not be of as much i'm
portance to him as the first 90.
Cannot Be Undone.
Now, why do say this? Is it for the
annoyance of those who have only
baleful retrospection? You know that is
not my way. say it for the benefit of
young men and women. I want them to
understand that eternity is wrapped up
in this hour; that the sins of youth we
never get over; that you are now fash
ioning the mold in which your great
future is to run; that a minute, instead
of being 60 seconds long, is made up of
everlasting ages. You can see what dig
nifty and Importance this gives to the
life of all our young folks. Why, in the
light of this subject life is not some
thing to he frittered away. not some
thing to be smirked about, not some
thing to be danced out, but something
to be weighed in the balances of eternity.
Oh, young man, the sin Of yesterday,
the sin of tomorrow will reach over 10,-
900 years-aye, over the great and unend-
ing eternity. You may after awhile
say: 81 am very sorry. Now | have got
to be 80 or 40 years Of age, and do
wish [ had never committed those sins. -
What does that amount to? God may
pardon you, but undo those things you
never will, you never can.
In this same category of irrevocahle
mistakes put all parental neglect. We
begin the education of our children toe
late. BY the time they get to be 10 or
Is we wake up to our mistakes and t,y
to eradicate this bad habit and change
that, but it is too late. That parent who
omits in the first ten years of the child's
life to make an eternal impression for
Christ never makes it. The child will
probably go on with all the disadvan-
tages, which might have been avoided
/ NV fol fai f171y
what mistake that father or mother
makes who puts off to late life adher-
ence to Christ. Here is man who at so
years Of age says to you, Il must be
Christian, - and he yields his heart to
God and sits in the place of prayer to-
day Christian. None of us can doubt
it. He goes home, and he says f'Here
at so years of age I have given my heart
to the Saviour. Now I must establish a
family altar What? Where are your
children now? One in Boston, another
in Cincinnati, another III New Orleans,
and you, my brother, at your fiftieth
year going to establish your family al
tar? Very we'll, better late than never,
but alas, alas, that you did not do it 25
years ago!
When I was in Chamouni, SWitzer-
land, I saw in the window Of one of the
shops a picture that impressed my
mind very much. It was picture of an
accident that occurred on the side of
one of the Swiss mountains. A company
of travellers, with guides, went up some
very steep places-places which but few
travellers attempted to go up. They
We're, as all travellers are there, fastened
together with cords at the waist, SO that
if one slipped the rope would hold him,