Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-11-15

orchard tree which, though stripped
of all its leaves and struck through by
an iron bolt as long as your arm, never
theless bore the richest fruit that was
ever gathered. Like the trees of the first
orchard, this was planted, blossOmed
and bore fruit all in one day.
Paul was impulsive and vehement Of
nature, and he laid hold of that tree
with both arms and shock it till the
ground all round looked like an orchard
the morning after an autumnal equinox,
and, careful lest he step on some of the
fruit, gathered up basketful of it for
the Galatians, crying out, 1.-The fruit
Of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance " The other two
trees of Pilates orchard were loaded.
the one with the hard fruits Of obduraoy
and the other with the tender fruit of
repentance, but the center tree chow
will I ever forget the day l sat on the
exact place where it was planted)-the
center tree of that orchard yields the
antidote for the poisoned nations. There
is in old England the hollow of tree
where king hid, and there is in New
England tree i'll which q document of
national Importance was kept inviOlate,
and there have been trees of great girth
and immense shade and vast wealth of
fruitage but no other tree had such
value Of reminiscence, or depth Of root,
or spread Of branch, Or infnitUde of
fruitage as the center tree of Pilates
orchard. Before l pass this day from
under it | would like to drop Oh both
knees and with both hands outspread
and uplifted toward the heavens cry out
with all the nations of earth and heav-
en-: Il believe in God, the Father Al
mighty, Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our
Lord, who was conceived by the Holy
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary suffer-
ed under Pontius PLATE, was crucifed,
dead and buried. He descended into
he'll The third day he rose from the
dead. He assembled into heaven and sit
teth on the right hand of God the Fa-
ther Almighty. From thence he shall
come to judge the quick and the dead.
st. Johns Orchard.
Now, in this discourse of the pomolo-
gy Of the Bible, or God amid the or
chards, having shown you Adam IS or
chard and Solomon's orchard and Pr
-.ates orchard, I now take you into St.
Johns orchard, and l will stop there,
for having seen that you will want to
see nothing more. ST. John himself,
having seen that orchard, discharged
whole volley of Come! Come! Come!
and then pronounced the benediction
''Thc grace Of our Lord Jesus Christ be
with you all. Amen Then the ban
ished evangelist closes the book, and
the Bible is done. The dear old book
opened with Adam s orchard and closes
with st. Johns orchard. st. John went
into this orchard through a stone gate,
the black basalt of the isle of Patmos,
to which he had been exiled. That or
chard which he saw was and is III heav-
en-.
One person will err in speaking of
heaven as all material, and another per-
son describes heaven as all fgurative
and spiritual, and both are wrong.
Heaven is both material and spiritual,
as we are both material and spiritual.
While much of the Bible account of
heaven IS TO be taken figuratively and
spiritually, 1t is plain to me that heaven
has also a material existence. Christ
said, Il 60 to prepare place for you.
Is not place material? God, who has
done all the world building, the statis-
tics Of stars SO vast as to be q bewilder-
ment to telescopes, could have some
where in his astronomy piled up n ire
mendous world to make the Bible heav-
en- true both as q material splendOr
and a spiritual domain. do not believe
God put all the flowers, and all the pre-
cious stones, and all the bright metals,
and all the music, and all the fountains,
and all the orchards in this little world
of ours How much was literal and how
much was fgurative L cannot say, but
ST. John saw two rows of trees on each
side of a river, and it differed from 9TH
er orchards in the fact that the trees
bore - manner of fruits The learned
translators of our common Bible say it
means IL different kinds of fruits in one
year Albert Barnes says it means -
crops of the same kind of fruit in one
year. Not able to decide which is the
more accurate translation, adopt both.
IF it mean 10 different kinds of fruit, it
declares variety in heavenly joy. If
it means 10 crops of the same kind of
fruit, it declares abundance in heavenly
joy, and they are both true
Variety? Oh, yesl Not an eternity
with nothing but music; that oratorio
would be too protracted. Not an eternity
of procession on white horses; that
would be too long in the stirrups Not
an eternity of watching the river; that
would be too much of the picturesque.
Not an eternity of plucking fruits from
the tree of life; that would be too much
of the heavenly orchard. But all man
ner of varieties. and l will tell you of
at least 10 of those varieties: Joy of di-
vine worship, JOY over the victories of