Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1898-11-07
Strength From Di.c,p,,n..

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course OF preparation for their work.
They were put upon such diet as would
best develop their muscle. As Paul
says, Every man that striveth for the
mastery is temperate in all things. "
The wrestlers were put under complete
notwithstanding, gymnastics, strug-
gle IN sport with each other to devotion
strength and give quickness to dodge Of
head andstrip Of foot; STOPPING to lift
zach other of the ground; suddenly
rushing forward; suddenly pulling
backward; putting the left foot behind
the others right foot and getting his
opponent off bis balance: hard training
for days and weeks and months so that
when they met it was giant clutching
giant And, my friends, il We do not
want ourselves to be thrown in this
wrestle with the sin and error Of the
world, we had better get ready by
Christian discipline. by holy self de-
NAL. by constant practice, by submit
ting to divine supervisal and direction.
Do not begrudge the time aud the money
for that young man who is in prepara-
ton for the ministry, spending two
years in grammar school and four years
in college and three years in theological
seminary. know that nine years are a
big slice to take of of a man s active
life, but if you realized the height and
strength of the archangels of evil in
our time with which that young man is
going to wrestle, you would not think
nine years of preparation were too
much. An uneducated ministry was ex-
cusable in other days, but not in this
time, loaded with schools and colleges.
A man who wrote me the other day q
letter asking advice. as he felt called to
preach the gospel, began the word
"God" with small "g" That kind
Of man is not called to preach the
gospel. llliterate men. preaching the
gospel, quote for their own encourage
ment the Scriptural passage "Open thy
mouth wide and / fill it," Yesl Ho
will fill it with wind. Preparation for
this wrestling is absolutely necessary.
Many years ago Dr. Newman and DR..
Sunderland, on the platform Of Brigham
Young's tabernacle at Salt Lake City
gained the victory because they had so
long been ekillful wrestlers for God.
Otherwise Brigham Young, who was
himself giant in some things, would
have thrown them out of the window
Get ready in Bible classes Get ready
in Christian Endeavor meetings Get
ready by giving testimony in obscure
places. before giving testimony in con-
spicuous places.
The Silent Worker.
Your going around with Bagster's
Bible with flaps at the edges under
your arm does not qualify you for the
work Of an evangelist In this day Of
profuse CAB remember that it is not
merely capacity to talk. but the fact
that you have something to say that is
going to fit you for the struggle into
which you are to 60 with smile on
your face and illumination OH your
brow but out Of which you will not
come until all your physical and men,
tai and moral and religious energies
have been taxed to the utmost and You
have not nerve left or thought IN.
expended, or prayer unsaid, or SYM
pathy unwept In this struggle between
right and wrong accept no challenge on
platform or in newspaper unless you are
prepared. Do not misapply the story Of
Goliath the great, and David the lit
tie. David had been practicing with
sling on dogs and wolves and bandits,
and 1000 times had he swirled stone
around his head before lie aimed at the
forehead of the giant and tnmbled him
backward. otherwise the big foot of Co
Hath would almost have covered up the
crushed form Of the son of Jesse.
Notice also that the success of a
wrestler depended on his having his
feet we'll planted before he grappled
his opponent. Much depends upon the
way the wrestler stands. Standing on
an uncertain piece of ground or bearing
all his weight on right foot or all his
weight on left foot, he is not ready. A
slight cuff of his antagonist will capsize
him. A stroke Of the heel of the other
wrestler will trip him. And in this
struggle for God and Righteousness, as
we'll as for our own souls, we want our
feet firmly planted in the gospel-both
feet on the Rock of Ages. 1t will not
do to believe the Bible in spots, or think
some of it true and some of it untrue
You just make up your mind that the
story of the garden Of Eden is an al
legory, and the epistle Of James an in
terpolation, and that the miracles OF
Christ can be accounted tor on natural
grounds, without any belief in the SUI
pernatural, and the first time you arc
in rlocked in wrcstle with sin and
satan you will 60 under and your feet
will be higher than your head. 1t will
not do to have one foot Oh rock and
the other on the sand. The old book
would long ago have gone to pieces ii
it had been vulnerable. But of the mil
lions of Bibles that have been printed
within the last 25 years not one chap
ter has been omitted, and the omission
of one chapter would have been the
cause OF the rejection of the whole edi-
tiOn.
Alas fer those who while trying to
prove that Jonah was never swallowed
Of whale. themselves get swallowed OF
the whale of unbelief, which digests,
but never elects its victims The inspi-
ration of the Bible is not more certain
than the preservation of the Bible in its
present condition. After so manv CEN
;uries of assault on the book would 1t
not be matter of economy, to say the
least-econom of brain and economy OF
stationery and economy of printers ink
If tho batteries now assailing the book