Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-02-22

"SonIe on broken pieces of the ship,
s'But I don't believe in reviva1s!''
Then go to your room, and all alone,
with your door locked, give your heart
to God, and join some church where
the Thermometer never gets higher than
| 30 in the shade
ssBut I do not believe in baptismp
Come in without it and settle that mat
ter afterward. ssBut there are so many
inconsistent Christiansp' Then come
in and show them by a good example
how professors should act. But don't
believe in the Old TESTAMENT Then
come in on the New. "But don It like
the book of Romans. Then come III
on Matthew or Luke. Refusing to come
to Christ, whom you admit to be the
Saviour of the lost because you cannot
| admit other things, yau are like a man
out there in that Mediterranean tempest
| and tossed in the Nkelita breakers, re-
fusing to come ashore until he can mend
the pieces of the broken ship. [ hear
him say: ST won't go in on any of these
! p1anks until know, in what part OF the
ship they belong. When Z can get the
windlass in the right place, and the sails
set, and that keel piece where it belongs,
and that floor timber right, and these
ropes untangled, I will go ashore. I am
an old soldier, and know all about ships
for 40 years, and as soon as [ can get
the vessel afoat in good shape I will
come i'm A man drifting by on piece
of wood overhears him and says: "You
will drown before you get that ship re-
constructed. Better do as I am doing. 1
know nothing about ships, and never
I,ofo hi
and I cannot swim a stroke, but I am
going ashore on this shivered timber. -
The man in the offing, while trying to
mend his ship, goes down. The man
who trusted to the plank is saved. Oh,
my brother, let your smashed up system
of theology go to the bottom, while you
come in on splintered spar! s'Some
on broken pieces of the ship.
The Victorious Banner.
You may get all your difficulties set
tied as Garibaldi, the magnetic Italian,
got his gardens made When the war
between Austria and Sardinia broke out
he was living at Caprera a very rough
and uncultured island home. But he
went forth with his sword to achieve the
liberation of Naples and Sicily, and
gave 5000, 600 people free government
under Victor Emmanuel. Garibaldi,
after being absent two years from Ca
prera, returned, and when he approach
ed it he found that his home had, by
Victor Emmanuel, as a surprise, been
Edenized. Trimmed shrubbery had
taken the place of thorny thickets, gar
dens the place of barrenness, and the
old rookery in which he once lived had
given way to pictured mansion. And
I tell you if you will come and enlist
under the banner of our Victor Emman-
uel and follow him through thick and
thin and fight his battles and endure
his sacrifices you will find after awhile
that he has changed your heart from a
jungle of thorny skepticism into gar
den all abloom with luxuriant joy that |
you have never dreamed of-from
tangled Caprera of sadness into para
disc of God.
I do not know how your theological
system went to pieces. 1t may be that
your parents started you with only one
plank, and you believe little or moth !
ing. Or they may have been too rigid |
and severe i'll religious discipline and /
cracked you over the head with a psalm
book 1t may be that some partner in
business who was member of an evan
gelical church played ON you a trick
that Disguised you with religion. 1t /
may be that you have associates who /
have talked against Christianity in your
presence until you are "al1 at sea, - and !
you dwell more on things that you do !
not believe than on things you do be-
ieve. You are in one respect like Lord |
Nelson, when a signal was lifted that |
he wished to disregard and he put his
sea glass to his blind eye and said, 81
really do not see the signal; Oh, my
nearer. put this fieldglass of the gospel !
no longer to your blind eye, and say, I |
cannot see, but put it to your other eye,
the eye of faith, and you will see Christ.
and he is all you need to see.
If you can believe nothing else, you
certainly believe in vicarious suffering,
for you see it almost every day in some /
shape. The steamship Knickerbocker of
the Cromwell line, running between
New Orleans and New York, was in
great storms, and the captain and crew
saw the schooner Mary D. Cranmer of
Philadelphia in distress. The weather
cold, the waves mountain high the first
officer of the steamship and four men
put out in a 1ifeboat to save the crew of
the schooner, and reached the vessel and
towed it out of danger, the wind shift
ing SO that the schooner was saved. But
the five men of the steamship coming
back, their boat capsized, yet righted
again and came on, the sailors coated
with ice. The boat capsized again, and
three times upset and was righted, and
line was thrown the poor fellows, but
their hands were frozen SO they could
not grasp it, and a great wave rolled
over them, and they went down, never
to rise again till the sea gives up its