Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-04-09
fzgrave one Of the bestSfriends I ever
had. Retreat is victory!


Here is a converted intidel. He is so
Lssfrong now III his faith in the gospel
Re says he can read anything. What
are you reading? Bolingbroke? An
drew Jackson Davis tracts? .TyndalPs
Glasgow university address? Drop
them and run. You will be an inff1el
before you die unless you quit that.
These men of Al will be.too much for
you Turn your back on the rank and
file of unbelief. Fly before they cut
VOC with their swords and <transfiX you
/ with their javelins- There are people
who have been well nigh ruined be-
cause they risked q fOOlhardy eXpedi-
ton in the presence of mighty and
overwhelming temptations, and the
men of Al made q morning meal Of
them.
SCI also, there is victorious retreat in
the religious world Thousands of
times the kingdom OF Christ has SEEM
ed to- fall back. When the blood of the
Scotch Covenanters gave a deeper dye
TO the heather of the highlands, when
the Xeudois of France chose eXtermi-
nation rather than make an yunchris
tian surrender, when on st. BartholO-
news day mounted assassins rode
through the streets Of Paris, crying
Kill! bloodletting is good in August!
Kill! Death to the Huguenots! eKillr
when Lady Jane Grey's head Rolled
from the eXecutioner's block, when
Calvin was imprisoned in the castle,
when John Knox died for the truth
when John Bunyan lay rotting in Bed
ford Jail, saying, eff God will help me
and my physical life continues, l will
stay here until the moss grows on my
eyebrows rather than give up my
faith" the days of retreat for the
church were days of victory.
The pilgrim fathers fell back from
the other s;ee of the sea to Plymouth
Rock, but now are marshaling a con-
tinent for the :Christianization of the
world The church of Christ falling
back from Piedmont, falling back
from Rue st. jacques, falling back
from st. Denis, falling back from Wurt-
temberg castles, falling back from the
Brussels market place, yet all the time
triumphing. Notwithstanding all the
reverses which the church of Christ
suffers, what do we see today?
Twelve thousand missionaries of the
Gross on heather grounds; eighty thou
sand ministers of Jesus Christ in this
land; at least four hundred millions Of
Christians on the earth. Falling back,
yet advancing until the old Wesleyan
hymn will prove true:
The Lion of Judah shall break the chain
And give the victory again and again!
But there is q more marked jlluStra-
ton of victorious retreat in the life Of
our Joshua, the Jesus of the ages.
First falling back from an appalling
height TO an appalling depth, falling
from celestial hills to terrestrial val
leys. from throne to manger; yet that
did not seem to suffice him as a re-
treat Failing back still farther from
Bethlehem to Nazareth, from Nazareth
to Jerusalem. back from Jerusalem to
Golgotha, back from Golgotha to the
mausoleum ia the rock, back down
over the precipices of perditiOn until he
walked amid the caverns of the eter-
nal captives and drank of the wine
of the wrath Of Almighty God, amid
the Ahabs and the Jezebels and the
BelShazZars. Oh, men of the pulpit
and men of the pew, Christs descent
from heaven to earth does not measure
half the distances! 1t was from glory
to perditiOn. He descended into hell,
All the records of earthly retreat are
as nothing compared with this falling
back. Santa Anna, with the fragments
Of his army flying over the plateaus of
Mexico, and Napoleon and his army re-
treating from Moscow into the awful
SHOWS of Russia are not worthy to be
mentioned with this retreat, when all
the powers of darkness seemed to be
pursuing Christ as he fell back until
the body of him who came to do such
wonderful things lay pulseless and
stripped. Methinks that the city of All
was not so emptied of it's inhabitants
when they went to pursue Joshua as
perdition was emptied of devils when
they started for the pursuit of Christ,
end he fell back and back, down lower,
down lower, chasm below chasm, pit
below pit, until he seemed to strike the
bottom of objurgatiOn and scOrn and
torture Oh, the long, loud, jubilant
shout of hell at the defeat of the Lord
God Almighty!
Triumph of the Wicked Is Short.
But let not the powers of darkness
rejoice quite so soon. Do you hear
that disturbance in the tomb of Arima-
thea? l hear the sheet rending! What
means that stone hurled down the side
of the hill? Who is this coming out?
Push him back! The dead must not
stalk in this open sunlight. oh, it is
our Joshua. Let him come out. He
comes forth and starts for the city. He
takes the spear of the Roman guard
and points that way. Church militant
marches up on one side, and the
church triumphant marches down on
the other side. And the powers of