Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-11-14

Of what you were in boyhood or girl
| hood, and what you were ten years later,
and it is very interesting to any one to
be able to look back upon pictures of
what he was 10 or 20 or 80 years ago.
! But have you ever had picture taken
of what you may be and what you will
| be if you seek after God and feel the
| spirits regenerating power? Where
! shall l plant the camera to take the pic
| ture? | plant it on this platform l di-
rect it toward you. Sit still or stand
still while take the picture. 1t shall
be an instantaneous picture. There! I
have it. Tt is done. You can see the
picture in its imperfect state and get
some idea of what it will be when thor
oughly developed. There is your resur-
rected body so brilliant that the noon
day sun is a patch of midnight compar-
ed with it. There is your soul, so pure
that all the forces of diabolism could
not spot it with an imperfection. There
is your being, SO mighty and SO swift
that flight from heaven to Mercury or
Mars or Jupiter and back again to heav-
en- would not weary you and a world on
each shoulder would not crush you. An
eye that shall never shed tear. An
energy that shall never feel fatigue.
A brow that shall never throb with
pain. You are young again, though you
died of 0ecrepitude. You are we'll again,
though you coughed or shivered your
self into the tomb. Your everyday asso-
ciates are the apostles and prophets and
martyrs, and most exalted souls, mas
culine and feminine, of all the centu-
ries. The arcEangel to you no embar-
rassment. God himself your present and
everlasting JOY. That is an instantane-
Gus picture of what you may be and
what | am sure some of you will be-.
Only Il Little While.
If you realize that it is an imperfect
picture, my apology is what the apos-
tie John said, "It doth not yet appear
what we shall be-. "To this end was I
BORN If did not think so I would be
overwhelmed with melancholy. The
world does very we'll for little while,
80 or 100 or $50 years, and think that
human longevity may yet be improved
up to that prolongation, for now there
is so little loom between our cradle and
our grave we cannot accomplish much
but who would want to dwell in this
world for all eternity? Some think this
earth will finally be turned into heav-
en-. Perhaps it may, but it would have
to undergo radical repairs and thorough
eliminations and evolutions and revolu-
tions and transformations infinite to
make it desirable for eternal residence.
All the east winds would have to be-
come west winds, and all the winters
changed to springtides and all the vol
canoes extinguished, and the oceans
chained to their beds, and the epidem-
les forbidden entrance and the world
SO fixed up that I think it would take
more to repair this old world than to
make an entirely new one. But must
say I do not care where heaven is if
we can only get there; whether gar
denied America or an emparadised Eu-
rope or world central to Che whole
universe. HTo this end was | born
If each one Of us could say that we
would go with faces shining and hopes
exhilarant amid earth worst misfor-
tunes and trials. Only little while,
and then the rapture. Only q little
while, and then the reunion. Only a
little while, and then the transfgura-
ton.
In the seventeenth century all Eu-
rope was threatened with a wave of |
Asiatic bar barism and Vienna was espe- |
cially besieged. The king and his court |
had fed and nothing could save the city |
from being overwhelmed unless the |
king of Poland, John Sobieski, to whom |
they had sent for help, should with his |
army come down for the relief. and from |
every roof and tower the inhabitants of |
Vienna watched and waited and hoped |
until on the morning Of Sept. II the |
rising sun threw an unusual and I'M
paralleled brilliancy. 1t was the ref1ec-
tion of the sun on the swords and shields |
and helmets Of John Sobieski and his
army coming down over the hills to the |
rescue, and that day not only Vienna,
but Europe, was saved. And see you |
not, O ye souls besieged with sin and
sorrow, that light breaks in, the swords
and the shields and the helmets of di-
vine rescue bathed in the rising sun of
heavenly deliverance? Let everything
else go rather than let heaven go.
What a strange thing it must be to
feel oneself born to an earthly crown,
but you have been born for throne on
which you may reign after the last
monarch of all the earth shall have gone
to dust. I invite you to start now for
your own coronation, to come in and
take the title deeds to your everlasting
inheritance. Through an impassioned
prayer, take heaven and all Of its rap
lures.
What poor farthing is all that this
world can offer you compared with par
don here and life immortal beyond the
stars unless this side of them there be
a place large enough and beautiful
enough and grand enough for all the
Wherever it be, in what
wOr Id whether near hy or far awav i'm |