Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-10-23

y
est word in all our language, the word
most angry and baleful the word sat
urated with the most trouble, the word
that accounts for all the lOathsomeness
and the pang and the outrage and the
narrowing, and that word is ''sin."
You spell it with three letters, and yet
those three letters describe the circum-
ference and pierce the diameter Of ev-
erything bad in the universe. Sin is
sibilant word. You cannot pronounce
it without giving the siss Of the fame
or the hiss of the serpent Sin! And
then if you add three letters to that
word it describes every one Of us by
nature-sinner. We have outraged the
law of God, not occasionally, or now
and then, but perpetually. The Bible
declares it. Hank! 1t thunders two
claps: '"The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked"
1.-THE soul that sinneth, it shall die"
What the Bible says our own con-
science aff1rms.
After Judge Morgan had sentenced
Lady Jane Grey to death his conscience
troubled him so much for the deed that
he became insane, and all through his
away from me! Lady Jane Grey! Take
her away! Lady Jane Grey" 1t was
the voice of conscience. And no man
ever does anything wrong, however
great or small, but his conscience
brings that matter before him, and at
every step Of his misbehavior it says,
Wrong, wrongv Sin is a leprosy; sin
Is a paralysis; sin Is a consumption;
sin is pollution; sin Is death. Give 1t
q fair chance, and it will swamp you
and me, body, mind and soul, forever.
In this world it only gives a faint init
nation of its virulence. You see pa
tent in the first stages Of typhoid fe-
yer. The cheek is somewhat flushed,
the hands somewhat hot, preceded by
a slight chill. why" you say, ety.
phoid fever does not seem to be much
Of q disease" But wait until the pa
tient has been six weeks under it, and
all his energies have been wrung out,
and he is too weak to lift his little
finger, and his intellect gone, then you
see the full havoc Of the disease. Now,
sin in this world is an ailment which
is only in it's first stages, but let 1t get
under full sway, and 1t is an all con-
Stunning typhoid. Oh, II we could see
our unpardoned sins as God sees them,
our teeth would chatter and our knees
would knock together, and our respira-
ton would be choked, and our heart
would break. If your sins are unforgiv-
en-, they are bearing down on you, and
you are misunderstanding away from
happiness, sinking away from God,
sinking away from everything that 1g
good and blessed.
High Water Mark.
Then what do we want? A swim
mer-a strong swimmer, a swift
swimmer! And, blessed be God, in my
text we have him announced. "He shall
spread forth his hands in the midst of
them, as he that swimmeth stretcheth
forth his hands to swim" You have
noticed that when a swimmer goes to
rescue any one he puts off his heavy ap-
pareL. He must not have any such i'm
pediment about him if he is going to do
this great deed. And when Christ STEP
ped forth to save us he shook off the
sandals of heaven, and his feet were
free, and then he stepped down into
the wave of our transgressions, and it
came up over his wounded feet, and it
came above the spear stab in his side
aye, it dashed to the lacerated tenn
pie, the high water mark of anguish.
Then, rising above the food, "He
stretched forth his hands in the midst
of them, as he that sWimmeth spread
eth forth his hands to swim"
If you have ever watched a swim
mer, you notice that his whole body is
brought into play. The arms are f1ex-
ed, the hands drive the water back,
the knees are active, the head is
thrown back to escape strangulation,
the whole body is in propulsion. And
when Christ sprang into the deep to
save us he threw his entire nature into
it-all his godhead, his omniscience, his
goodness, his love, his omnipotence,
head, heart, eyes, hands, feet. We |
were far out on the sea and so deep
down in the waves and so far out from
the shore that nothing short Of an en-
tire God could save us. Christ leaped |
out for our rescue, saying, 'Lo, 1 come |
to do thy willr and all the surges of !:
human and satanic hate beat against =,
him, and those who watched him from |
the gates Of heaven feared he would |
go down under the waves and instead |
Of saving others would himself perish; |
but, putting his breast to the foam |
and shaking the surf from his locks, he
came on and on until he is now within
the reach Of every one here, eye ON
niscient, heart infinite, arm omnipo- |
tent mighty to save, even unto the |
uttermost.
Oh, it was not half God that tram |
pied down believing Gennesaret; it |
was not a quarter Of a God that mas |
tered the demons of Gadara; it was not |
two-thirds of a God that lifted up Laz-
aruS into the arms of his OYerioYed |