Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-12-05

! yiedeth the peaceab1e fruit of righteous
ness unto them which are exercised
thereby weeping may endure for a
night, but joy cometh in the morning"
What sweet thing is harp, and I
wonder not that in Wales, the country
of my ancestors, the harp has become
the national instrument and that they
have festivals where great prizes are
| Uttered in the competition between harp
and harp. or that weird Sebastian Erard
was much of his time bent over this
! chorded and vibrating triangle, and was
not satisfied until he had given it a
compass of six octaves, from E to E
/ with all the semitones, or that when
King Saul was demented the son Of
Jesse came before him and, putting his
| fingers among the charmed strings of
the harp, played the devil out Of the
crazed monarch, or that in heaven there
shall be harpers harping with their
| harps So you will not blame me for
! opening the dark saying on the gospel
harp:
Your harps, We bling saints,
Down from the willows take;
Loud to the praise of love divine
Bid every string awake!.
Interrogation third: Why did the
| good God let sin or trouble come into
the world when he might have kept
them out? My reply is, He had good
reason. He had reasons that he has
never given u.s. He had reasons which
he could no more make US understand
in our finite state than the father, start
ing out on some great and elaborate en-
terprise, could make the 2-year-Old
child in it's armed chair comprehend it,
One was to demonstrate what grandeur
of character may be achieved on earth
by conquering evil. Had there been no
evil to conquer and no trouble to con-
sole, then this universe would never
have known an Abraham or Moses or
Joshua or an Ezekiel or Paul or
Christ or Washington or John Mil
ton or John Howard, and a million
victories which have been gained by
the consecrated spirits of all ages would
never have been gained. Had there been
no battle, there would have been no
victory. Nine tenths of the anthems of
heaven would never have been sung.
Heaven could never have been a thou
sandth part of the heaven that it is |
will not say that am glad that sin
am glad that after God has given all
his reasons to an assem- bled universe
he will be more honored than if sin and
sorrow had never entered and that the
unfallen celestials will be outdone and
will put down their trumpets to listen
and it will be in heaven when those
who have conquered sin and sorrow
shall enter as it would be in a small
singing school on earth If Thalberg and
Gottschalk and Wagner and Beethoven
and Rhein berger and Schumann should
all at once enter. The immortals that
have been chanting 10000 years before
the throne will say. as they close their
librettos, 'Oh, if we could only sing
like that!" But God will say to those
who have never fallen and consequent
ly have not been redeemed, "You must
be silent now; you havs not the qualifi-
cation for this anthem So they sit
with closed lips and folded hands, and
sinners saved by grace take up the har-
mony, for the Bible says "no man could
learn that song but the hundred and
forty and four thousand which were re-
deemed from the earth. -
The Recompense of Sin.
A great prima donna, who can now
do anything with her voice, told me
that when she first started in music her
teacher in Berlin told her she conld be
good singer, but certain note she
could never reach. "And them she
said, II went to work and studied and
practiced for years until did reach it."
But the song of the singer redeemed,
the Bible says, the exalted harmonists
who have never sinned could not reach
and never will reach. Would you like
to hear me in very poor way play a
snatch of that tune? l can give you
only one bar of the music on this gospel
harp, Unto him that hath loved US
and washed us from our sins in his own
blood and hath made us kings and
priests unto God and the Lamb, to him
be glory and dominion forever and ever,
amen. But before leaving this inter
rogatory, why God let sin come into
the world let me say that great battles
seem to be nothing but suffering and
outrage at the time of their occurrence.
yet after they have been long while
past we can see that it was better foc
them to have been fought, namely, Sal
amis, Inkerman, Toulouse, Arbela,
Agincourt, Trafalgar, BIenheim, Lex
ington, Sedan. So now that the great
battles against sin and suffering are
going on we can see mostly that which
is deplora BILE, but 10000 years from
now, standing in glory, we shall appre-
ciate that heaven is better off than if
the battle of this worlds sin and suf-
fering had never been projected. But
now | come nearer home and put a
dark saying on the gospel harp, a style
of question that is asked million times
every year Interrogation the fourth: