Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-11-26
nuisance to the community in which


they live.
The book of Samuel gives a photo
graph of Mephibosheth lame in both
feet. When we see any one lame in
one foot or lame in both feet, we al
ways wonder by what accident he was
famed. Perhaps it may have been in
battle for his country, or he may have
been run over by some reckless driver
or some explosion did the damage. So
you wonder how Mephibosheth became
lame in both feet. The Bible for good
reason gives us the particulars. 1t tells
US that when he was a child his nurse
dropped him. She must have dropped
him very hard, for he never again got
over the effect of that fall. Long after
the accident we find him at King Da-
vid's table, but still our attention is
called to the fact that his feet were
crippled, though so long before his
nurse dropped him. And mark you
that today in all departments of life
there are those crippled in habits, Grip
pied in morals, crippled for all time.
The accident happened in this way:
Their mothers were gadabouts and
neglected their homes, and the work of
training them was given over to incOm-
petent nurses, and the nurses let them
fall into bad habits, told them deprav-
ing stories and gave them wrong no.
lions of life and practically ruined
them. But Mephibosheth was taken
by King David into the palace and
seated at the royal table, so by the
grace of the heavenly King these I'M
fortunate ones may yet be seated at
the Kings table in the Kings palace,
though the nurses did drop them so
that morally they were lame in both
feet.
One bad habit these gadabouts, mas
culine or feminine, are sure to get, and
that is of scandal distribution. They
hear so many deleterious things about
others and see so much of wrong beha-
vior that they are loaded up and loaded
down with the faults of others, and
they have their eyes full and their ears
full and their hands full and their
mouths full of defamation. The wom-
an who is endowed of gossip can so
easily unite her bonnet strings and sit
down to spend the afternoon. A man
can afford you q cigar as q retainer if
you will patiently hear all he has to
say about those who cannot pay their
debts or are about to fail or are guilty
or moral mishap or have aroused suspi-
cion of embeZZlement. All gadabouts
are peddlers, who unpack in your pres
ence their large store of nuX vomica
and nightshade. Such gadabouts have
little prospect of heaven. If they got
there, they would try to create jealousy
among the different ranks of celestials
and make trouble among the heavenly
neighbors and start quarrels seraphic
and would be on perpetual run, now
down this street and now up that, now
in the house of many mansions and
now in the choir of the temple and now
on the walls and now in the gates until
they would be chased down and pushed
out into the pandemOnium of bacllbit-
ers and slanderers after Jeremiah had
addressed them in the words, why
gaddest thou about so much to change
thy way"
Surrender to God.
Now. what is the practical use of the
present discourse? This: Whereas so
many have ruined themselves and ru-
ined others by becoming gadabouts
theories. among churches, among
neighbOrhOods, therefore resolved that
we will concentrate upon what is
right thought and right behavior and
waste no time in vacillatiOns and indie
cisiOns and uncertainties, running
about in places where we have no bust
ness to be. Life is so short we have no
time to play with it the spendthrift.
Find out whether the Bible is true and
whether your nature is immortal and
whether Christ is the divine and Only
Saviour and whether you must have
him or be discounted and whether
there will probably ever be Il more aus
picious moment for your becoming his
adherent and then make this II o'clock
at noon of Nov. % the most illustriouS
minute that you will ever have passed
since the day of your birth until the
ten millionth cycle of the coming eter-
nifty, because by complete surrender of
thought and will and affection and life
to God through Jesus Christ you be-
came new man, new woman, q new
soul, and God the Father and God the
Son and God the Holy Ghost and all
cherubim and seraphim and
became your allies.
Found among the papers of the learn
ed Samuel Johnson was a prayer in |
scribed with the words, "When my eye |
was restored to its use," and it is a
great moment when we get over our |
moral blindness and gain spiritual eye
sight. That is a moment from which |
we may we'll date everything. All the |
glory of Henry II of France vanished |
when in a tournament g. lance eXtin-
guished his eye, and the worst disaster
that can happen to us is to have the |
vision of our soul put out. If you have |