Connecticut western news., 1899-12-14

never be at peace with God till you are at peace with man. Feeling as you now do, you would not get so near the harbor of heaven as to see the light ship. Better leave that mau with the God who said: Vengeance is mine. I will repay" You may say: II will make him sweat for that yet. I will make him squirm. 1 mean to pursue him to the death." But you are damag- ing yourself more than you damage him, and you are making heaven for your own soul an impossibility. If he will not be reconciled to you, be recon ciled to him. In five or six hours 1t will be sundown. The dahlias will bloom against the western sky. Somewhere between this and that take a shovel and bury the old quarrel at least six feet deep. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath"
 Renounce Hatreds.
 But" you say, II have more than I can bear. Too much Is put upon me, and I am not to blame if I am some what revengeful and unre1enting." Then I think of the little child at the moving of some goods from a store. The father was putting some rolls of goods on the child's arm, package after package, and some one said, That child is being overloaded, and so much ought not to be put upon her," when the child responded, Father knows how much I can carry" And God, our Father, will not allow too much i'm position on his children. In the day of eternity 1t will be found you had not one annoyance too many, not one eX- asperation too many, not one outrage too many. Your Heavenly Father knows how much you can carry.
 Again. we ought not to allow the pas sage of the sunset hour before the dis missal of all our affronts, because we may associate the sublimest action of the soul with the sublimest spectacle in nature. It is a most delightsome thing to have our personal experiences allied with certain subjects. There is a tree or river bank where God first an swered your prayer. You will never pass that place or think of that place without thinking of the glorious com
 
 room or some garden wall where you were affianced with the companion who has been your chief joy in life. You never speak of that place but with a smile. Some of you have pleas ant memories connected with the even- ing star, or the moon in its first quar- ter, or with the sunrise, because you co xU if fnS QpriuinO a harbor after a tempestuous voyage. Forever and forever, o nearer, asso- ciate the sunset with your magnani- nous, out and out, unlimited renun- citation of all hatreds and forgiveness of all foes.
 I admit 1t is the most difficult of all graces to practice, and at the start you may make a complete failure, but keep on In the attempt to practice 1t. Shakes peare wrote ten plays before he reach ed Hamlet" and IT plays before he reached Merchant of Venice" and 2S plays before he reached Macbeth" And gradually you will come from the easier graces to the most difficult. Be sides that, 1t is not a matter of per Sonal determination so much as the laying hold of the almighty arm of God, who will help us to do anything we ought to do. Remember that in all personal controversies the one least to blame will have to take the first step at pacification if it is ever effected. The contest between EschineS and Aristippus resounds through history, but Aristippus, who was least to blame, went to Eschines and said, Shall we not agree to be friends be- fore we make ourselves the laughing stock of the whole countryf" And .Eschines said, Thou art a far better man than I, for I began the quarrel, but thou hast been the first in healing the breach." And they were always friends afterward. So let the one of you that is least to blame take the first step toward reconciliation. The one most in the wrong will never take it. ...
 Practice Forgiveness.
 Oh, it makes one feel splendid to be able by Gods help to practice un- limited forgiveness. It improves ones body and soul. My brother, it will make you measure three or four more inches around the chest and improve your respiration so that you can take a deeper and longer breath. It i'm proves the countenance by scattering the gloom and makes you somewhat like God himself. He is omnipotent, and we cannot copy that. He is inde- pendent of all the universe, and we cannot copy that. He is creative, and we cannot copy that. He is omnipres- ent, and we cannot copy that But he forgives with broad sweep all. faults, and all neglects, and all insults, and all him with mighty success. Go harness that sublime action of your soul to the sunset-the hour when the gate of heaven opens to let the day pass into eternities and some of the glories es- cape this way through the brief open ing. We talk about the Italian sum- sets, and sunset amid the Apennines, and sunset amid the cordilleras, but I will tell you how you may see a grander sunset than any mere lover of nature ever beheld-that is, by fiinging into 1t all your hatreds and animosi- ties, and let the horses of fire tram pie them, and the chariots of fire roll over them, and the spearmen of fire stab them, and the beach of fire con- sume them, and the pillows of fire over whelm them.
 Again, we should not let the sun go down on our wrath, because it is of little importance what the world says of you or does to you when you have the affluent God of the sunset as your provider and defender. People talk as though it were fixed spectacle of na- ture and always the same. But no one ever saw two sunsets alike, and If the world has existed 5000 years there have been about 2,190,000 sunsets, each of them as distinct from all the other pictures in the gallery of the sky as Titian's "Last Supper" Rubens' De scent From the Cross," Raphaers