Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-01-02

| estimates MS lie on 6aTGn Dy mere
worldly qualification is a most unwise
man. Our life is not to be game Of
chess. 1t is not dance in lighted hall,
to quick music. It is not the froth of an
ale pitcher. It is not the settings of a
wine cup. 1t is not banquet, with in
| toxication and roistering. 1t is the first
step on a ladder that mounts into the
skies Or the first step on a road that
plunges into a horrible abyss. Chow
old art tbou?" Toward what destiny
are you tending and how fast are you
! getting on toward it?
The Furrowed Brow.
Again, remark that there are many
who estimate their life on earth by
their sorrows and misfortunes Through
great many of your lives the plow-
share hath gone very deep, turning up
terrible furrow. You have been be-
trayed, and misrepresented, and set up
on, and slapped of impertinence, and
| pounded of misfortune. The brightest
life must have its shadows and the
smoothest path its thorns. On the hap
piest brood the hawk pounces. No
| escape from trouble of some kind.
While glorious John Milton was losing
| his eyesight he heard that Salmasius was
glad of it. While Sheridan's comedy
was being enacted in Drury Lane thea
ter, London, his enemy sat growing at
it in the stage box. While Bishop Coop
er was surrounded by the favor of
learned men his wife took his lexicon
manuscript, the result of long life of
anxiety and toll, and threw it into the
fire. Misfortune, trial, vexation for al
most every one! Pope, applauded of all
the world, has stoop in the shoulder
that annOys him so much that he has
| tunnel dug, so that he may go unob-
served from garden to grotto and from
grotto to garden. Cano, the famous
Spanish artist, is disguised with the
crucifix that the priest holds before him
because it is such poor specimen of
sculpture, and SO, sometimes through
taste, and sometimes through learned
menace, and sometimes through phys
ical distresses-aye in 10000 ways
troubles come to harass and annoy.
And yet it is unfair to measure a
man S life by his misfortunes because
where there is one stalk of nightshade
there are 80 marigolds and harebells;
where there is one cloud thunder
luSIo arc uuduIOuS ob4oy
across the heavens, the glory of land
and sky. asleep in their bosom. Because
death came and took your child away
did you Immediately forget all the five
years, or the ten years, or the 10 years
in which she came every night for
kiss, all the tones of your heart pealing
forth at the sound of her voice or the
soft touch of her hand? Because in some
financial Euroclydon your fortune went
into the breakers did you forget all
those years in which the luxuries and
extravagances of life showered on your
pathway? Alas. that is an unwise man,
an ungrateful man, an unfair man, an
unphilosophic man, and, most of all,
an un-Christian man, who measures his
life on earth by grOans and tears and
dyspeptic fit and abuse and scorn and
terror and neuralgia thrust!
Again, I remark that there are many
people who estimate their life on earth
by the amount of money they have &C
cumulated. They say, "The year 1866
or 1870 or 1898 was wasted" Why?
"Made no money" Now, it is all cant
and insincerity to talk against money,
as though it had no value. 1t may rep
resent refinement and education and ten
thousand blessed surroundings. It is
the spreading of the table that feeds the
children's hunger. It is the spreading
of the table that feeds the children's
hunger. 1t is the lighting of the fur
mace that keeps you warm. 1t is the
making of the bed on which you rest
from care and anxiety. It is the carry
ing of you out at last to decent sepulcher,
and the putting up of the slab on which
is chiseled the story Of your Christian
hope. It is simply hypocrisy, this
TRADE in pulpit and lecture hall against
money.
The Curse of Money.
But while all this is so, he who uses
money or thinks of money as anything
but a means to an end, will find out his
mistake when the glittering treasures
slip out of his nerveless grasp, and he
goes out of this world without a shilling
of money or certificate of stock. He
might better have been the Christian
porter that opened his gate or the be-
grimed workman who last night heaved
the coal into his cellar. Bonds and
mortgages and leases have their use,
but they make a poor yardstick with
which to measure life. "They that
boast themselves in their wealth and
trust in the multitude of their riches,
none of them can, by any means, re-
deem his brother or give to God ran
som for him that he should not see cor
ruption.'
But I remark, there are many-I
wish there were more-who estimate
their life by their moral and spiritual
development.
It is not sinful egotism for Chris
tian man to say: 81 am purer than
0Sed Tn he am more cODSecrated IN