Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-08-23

/ pulled out many soul that was deeper
in the mire than you are. They line the
! beach Of heaven-the multitude whom
God has rescued from the thraIl of sui
cidal habits If you this day turn back
on the wrong and start anew, God Will
help you Oh, the weakness of human
helpl Men will sympathize for awhile
and then turn you off. If you ask for
their pardon, they will give it and say
they will try you again; but, falling
away again under the power Of tempta'
ton, they cast you off forever. But God
forgives seventy times seven; yea, sew
en- hundred times; yea, though this be
the ten thousandth time, he is more
earnest, more sympathetic, more help
full this last time than when you took
| your first misstep.
! If with all the influences favorable
for right life men make so many mis-
takes, how much harder is it when, for
| instance, some appetite thrusts it's iron
grapple into the roots of the tongue and
pulls a man down with hands of de-
| struction? If, under such circumstances,
he break away, there will be no sport
in the undertaking, no holiday enjoy
ment, but struggle in which the
wrestlers move from side to side and
bend and twist and watch for an oppor-
tunity to get in a heavier stroke, until
with one final effort, in which the mus
cles are distended and the veins stand
out and the blood starts, the swarthy
habit falls under the knee of the victor
escaped at last as with the skin of
his teeth
Near a Watery Grave.
The ship Emma, bound from Gotten
burg to Harwich, was sailing on when
the man on the lookout saw something
that he pronounced vessel bottom up.
There was something on it that locked
like a sea gull, but was afterward found
to be waving handkerchief. In the
small boat the crew pushed out to the
wreck and found that it was capsized
vessel. and that three men had been
digging their way out through the bot
tom of the ship. When the vessel cap
sized, they had no means of escape The
captain took his penknife and dug away
through the pIanks until his knife broke.
Then an old nail was found, with which
they attempted to scrape their way up
out Of the darkness, each one working
until his hand was we'll nigh paralyzed,
and he sank back faint and sick. After
long and tedious work the light broke
through the bottom of the ship A hand
kerchief was hoisted. Help came. They
were taken on board the vessel and
saved. Did ever men come so near a
watery grave without dropping into it?
How narrowly they caped-escaped
only with the skin of their teeth -
There are men who have been capsized
of evil passions and capsized midocean,
and they are a thousand miles away
from any shore of help. They have for
years been trying to dig their way out
They have been digging away and dig
ging away, but they can never be deliv-
cred unless now they will hoist some sig
nal Of distress. However weak and feeble
it may be, Christ will see it and bear
down upon the helpless craft and take
them on board, and it will be known on
earth and in heaven how narrowly they
escaped escaped as with the skin of
their teeth !"
There are others who in attempting
to come to God must run between a
great many business perplexities. If
man go over to business at 10 o'clock in
the morning and come away at o'clock
i'll the afternoon, he has some time for
religion, but how shall you find time
for religious contemplation when you
are driven from sunrise to sunset and
have been for five years going behind
i'll business and are frequently dunned
by creditors whom you cannot pay, and
when from Monday morning until Sat-
urday night you are lodging bills that
you cannot meet? You walk day by
day in uncertainties that have kept
your brain on fire for the past three
years. Some with less business troubles
than you have gone crazy The clerk
has heard a noise in the back counting
room and gone in and found the chief |
man of the firm raving maniac, or the |
wife has heard the bang of a pistol in
the back parlor and gone in, stumbling
over the dead body of her husband-a
suicide. There are men pursued, har-
assed, trodden down and scalped of
business perplexities, and which way
to turn next they do not know. Now
God will not be hard on you. He knows
what obstacles are in the way of your
being Christian, and your first effort |
in the right direction he will crown |
with success. Do not let satan, with |
cotton bales, and kegs, and hogsheads,
and counters, and stocks of unstable |
goods, block up your way to heaven.
Gather up all your energies Tighten
the girdle about your loins. Take an
agonizing look into the face of God,
and then say, ''Here goes one grand
effort for life eternal" and then bound
away for heaven, escaping "as with
the skin of your teeth. %
In the last day it will be found that
Hugh Latimer, and John Knox, and
Huss, and Ridley were not the greatest