Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-04-09
ta the, ssi1ogrness Of Bethuven. So

ing table. DO you expect to keep it p?
You viii die in the poOrhouse. You
make a fortune by Ubiquitous traffic.
Do you expect to keep it? Your mon
ey will scatter, or it will stay long
enough to curse your children after
you are dead Call over the roll of
bad men who prospered and see how
short was their prosperity. For awhile,
like the men of Al, they went from
conquest to- conquest, but after awhile
disaster rolled back upon them, and
they were divided into three parts.
Misfortune took their property, the
grave took their body and the lost
world took their soul. | am always
interested in the building Of palaces
of dissipation. l like to have them
built of the best granite and have the
rooms made large and to have the pill
lars made very firm. God is going to
conquer them, and they will be turned
into asylums and art galleries and
churches. The stores in which fraud
ulent men do business, the splendid
banking institutions where the presi-
dent and cashier put all their property
in their wives hands and then fail for
100000, all these institutions are to
become the places where honest Chris
tan men do business.
How long will it take your boys to
get through your i'll gotten gains? The
wicked do not live out half their days.
For awhile they sWagger and strut
and make a great splash in the news
papers, but after awhile it all dwindles
down into a brief parag graph: "Died
suddenly, April s, 1900, at 35 years of
age Relatives and friends of the fam
lily are invited to attend the funeral on
"Wednesday at 2 o'clock from his late
residence on Madison square. Inter
ment at Greenwood or Oak HILL"
Some of them jumped off the docks.
Some Of them took prussie acid. Some
of them fell under the snap of Der
ringer pistol. Some of them spent
their days in a lunatic asylum. Where
are William Tweed and his associates?
Where are Ketcham and Swartwout,
absconding swindlers? Where are
James Fisk, the libertine, and all the
other misdemeanants? The wicked do
not live out half their days. Disem-
bogue, O world of darkness! Come
Robespierre, and, with blistering and
disappearing and ashen lips, hiss out,
'"The triumph Of the wicked is short"
Lesson the third: How much may be
accomplished by lying in ambush for
opportunities. Are you hypercritical
of Joshua's maneuver? Do you say
that it was cheating for him to take
that city by ambuscade? Was it wrong
for Washington to kindle campfires on
Jersey heights, giving the impression
to the opposing force that a great army
was encamped there when there was
none at all? l answer, if the war was
right, then Joshua was right in his
stratagem. He violated no flag of
truce. He broke no treaty, but by a
lawful ambuscade captured the city of
Al. Oh, that we all knew how to lie
in ambush for opportunities to serve
God! The best of our opportunities do
not lie on the surface, but are secretet
By tact, by stratagem, by Christian am
buscade, you may take almost any cas-
tie of sin for Christ. Come up toward
men with a regular besiegement of ar
gument, and you will be defeated, but
just wait until the door of their hearts
is set ajar, or they are off their guard,
or their severe caution is away from
home, and then drop in on them from a
Christian ambuscade. There has been
many a man up to his chin in scientific
portfolios which proved there was no
Christ and no divine revelation, his
pen a scimeter flung into the heart of
theological opponents, who neverthe
less has been discounted and captured
for God by some little 3-year-old child
who has got up and put her snowy
arms around his SineWy neck and ask
ed some simple question about God.
Oh, make a flank movement! Steal
march on the devil! Cheat that man
into heaven! A SIS treatise that will
stand all the laws of homiletics may
fail to do that which penny tract Of
Christian entreaty may accomplish.
Oh, for more Christians in ambuscade
not lying in idleness, but waiting for
a quick spring, waiting until just the
right time comes! Do not talk to a
man about the vanity of this world on
the day when he has bought some
thing at ''12'' and is going to sell it at
%" But talk to him about the van
ity of the world on the day when he
has bought something at ''15'' and is
compelled to sell it at "12r' Do not
rub a mans disposition the wrong
way; do not take the imperative mood
when the subjunctive mood will do
just as well; do not talk in perfervid
style to a phlegmatic nor try to tickle
a torrid temperament with an icicle.
You can take any man for Christ if
you know how to get at him. Do not
send word to him that tomorrow at 10
o'clock you propose to open your bat
teries upon him, but come on him by a
cl.iIlf11l rao.couorirar God diroahod