Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-09-17

delugeS, OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES and To-
cust-or our overtowering success may
so far excite the jealousy Of other
lands that under some pretext the
great nations may combine to put us
down. Our nation, so easily approach
ed on north and south and from both
oceans, might have en- hand at once
more hostilities than were ever array
ed against any one power. l hope no
such ombination against us shall ever
be formed, but l want to show that as
Assyria was the hired razor against Ju-
daea and Cyrus the hired razor against
Babylon a1s1 the Huns the hired razor
against the Goths there are now many
razors that the Lord could hire if be-
cause of our national sins he should un-
dertake to shave US. In 1870 Germany
was the razor with which the Lord
shaved France. Japan was the razor
with which he shaved China and Amer
lea the razor with which he shaved ar
rogant, oppressive and Bible hating
Spain. But nations are to repent in
day. May a speedy and worldwide
coming to God hinder on both sides the
sea all national calamity. But do not
let us as nation either by unrighteous
law at Washington or bad lives among
ourselves defy the Almighty.
Divine C1emency.
One would think that our national
symbol Of the eagle might sometimes
suggest another eagle, that which an
cient Rome carried. In the talons of
that eagle were clutched at one time
Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Dalma-
tia, Rhetia, Noricum, Pannonia, Moe
STA, Dacia, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece,
Asia Minor, Syria, Ph0nicia, Palestine,
Egypt and all northern Africa and all
the islands of the Mediterranean-in-
deed all the world that was worth hav-
ing; 12O,OOO,OOO Of people under the
wings of that one eagle! Where is she
now? Ask Gibbon, the historian, in his
prose poem, the decline and Fall Of
the Roman Empire" Ask her gigantic
ruins, bemoaning their sadness through
the ages, the screech owl at windows
out of which worldwide conquerors
looked. Ask the day of judgment, when
her crowned debauchees, Commodus
and Pertinax and Caligula and Diocle-
tan, shall answer for their infamy. AS
men and as nations let us repent and
have our trust in a pardOning God
rather than depend on former success
es for immunity. Out of 13 of the
greatest battles of the world Napoleon
had lost but one before Waterloo. Pride
and destruction often rode in the same
saddle
But notice once more and more than
all in my text that God is so kind and
loving that when it is necessary for
him to cut he has to go to others for
the sharp edged weapon. "In the same
day shall the Lord shave with a razor
that is hired" God is love- God is
pity. God is help God is shelter. God
is rescue. There are no sharp edges
about him, no thrusting points, no in
struments of laceration If you want
balm for wounds, he has that. If you
want divine salve for eyesight, he has
that But If there is sharp and cutting
work to do which requires razor, that
he hires. God has nothing about him
that hurts save when dire necessity
demands, and then he has to go clear
off to some one else to get the instru-
ment. This divine clemency will be no
novelty to those who have pondered
the Calvarean massacre, where God
submerged himself in human tears and
crimsoned himself from punctured ar
terieS and let the terrestrial and infer
nal worlds maui him until the chande-
Tiers of the sky had to be turned out
because the universe could not endure
the outrage. Illustrious for love he
must have been to take all that as our
substitute paying out of his own heart
4Lo of Iv,,; c,Sio Of flo %os
of heaven.
A Wondrous Scene.
King Henry II of England crowned
his son as king and on the day of coro-
nation put on servants garb and
waited, he, the king, at the sons table,
to the establishment of all the princes.
But we know of a more wOndrouS
scene, the king of heaven and earth Of
fering to put on you, his child, the
crown of life and in the form of a serv-
ant waiting on you with blessing. Ex-
toll that love, all painting, all sculpture,
all music, all architecture, all worship!
In Dresdenian gallery let Raphael hold
him up as a child, and in Antwerp ca
thedral let Rubens hand him down
from the cross as a martyr and Handel
make all his oratorio vibrate around
that one chord-"He was wounded for
our transgressions, bruised for our in
iquities." But not until all the re-
deemed get home and from the counte-
nances in all the galleries Of the ram
somed shall be revealed the wonders, Of
redemption shall either man or seraph
or archangel know the height and
depth and length and breadth of the
love Of God.
At our national capital monument
in honor of him who did more than any
one to achieve our American independ-