Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1901-02-07

uS SpSHu our LIlIt III iiStthS tLlSttdO vi
fighting But if I angriiy jerk my net
across your net. al you jerk your net an
gri!v across mine. we viii soon have two
broken nets and no fish. The French
revolution nearly destroyed the French
fisheries. and ecclesiastical war is the
into the kingdom. My friends, | notice
in the text that James. the son of Zebe-
dee. and John. his brother, were busy not
mending somebody else's nets, but II 91ding
their own nets, and L rather tht' nat
we who are engaged in Christian in
this opening century will require all our
spare time to mend our own nets. God
help us in the important duty!
In this work of repair we need to put
into the nets more threads of common
sense. When we can present religion as
a great practically we viii catch hun
dred souls where now catch one. Pre-
sent religion as an intellectually, and we
will fail Out in the fisheries there are
set across the waters what are called gill
nets, and the fish put their heads through
the meshes and they cannot withdraw
them, because they are caught by the
gills. But gill nets cannot be of any serv-
ice in religious work. Men are never
caught for the truth by their heads; 1t ia
by the heart or not at all. No argument
ever saved man, and no keen analysis
ever brought man into the kingdom of
God. Heart work. not head work. Away
with your gill nets! Sympathy, helpful
ness. consolation. love. are the names of
some of the threads that we need to
weave in our gospel nets when we are
mending them.
Do you know that the worlds heart is
bursting with trouble, and if you could
make that world believe that the religion
of Jesus Christ is soothing Omnipotence
the whole world would surrender to-mor-
row-yea, would surrender this hour. The
al
rated as President | was in the cars going
from Richmond to Washington. A gentle
man seated near to me IN the cars knew
me, and we were soon In familiar CONVEX
sation. 1t was just after a bereavement,
and | was speaking to him from an over
burdened heart about the sorrow | was
suffering. Looking at his cheerful face L
said: Il guess you have escaped all trou-
bic. | should judge from your counte-
nance that you have come through free
from all misfortune Then he looked at
me with a look | shall never forget and
whispered in my ear: Sir, you know moth
ing about trouble. My wife has been in
an insane asylurn for fifteen years. And
then he turned and looked out of the
window and INTO the night with a silence
| was too OVerpOWered to break. That
was another illustration of the fact that
no one escapes trouble.
Why, that man seated next to you IN
church has on his soul a weight compared
with which a mountain Is a feather. That
woman seated next to you in church has
a grief the recital of which would make
your, body, mind and soul shudder.
When you are mending your net for this
wide deep sea of humanity, take out that
wire thread of criticism and that horsehalr
thread of harshness and put in soft
silllen thread of Christian sympathy. Yea,
when you are mending your nets tear out
those old threads of gruffness and weave
in few threads of polteness and genial
ity In the house of God let all Christian
faces beam with look that means well
come. Say Good morning" to the stran-
close shake hands with him and say, How
did you like the music?" Why, you would
be to that man a panel Of the door of
heaven; you would be to him note OF
the doxology that seraphs sing when
new soul enters heaven. [ have in other
days entered a pew in church and the
woman at the other end of the pew looked
This is my pew and | pay the rent for
it," Well, [ crouched in the other corner
and made myself small as possible and
felt as though / had been stealing some
thing
Into all our nets we need to weave all
along the edge and all through the centre
great, long stout threads OF Christian pa
tience. How patient God has been with
us! Can we not be patient with our tel
lows?
These dear brethren of all denomina-
tions, afflicted with theological tidgets,
had better so TO mending nets instead of
breaking them. Before they break up the
old religions let them go through some
great sacrifice for God that will prove
them worthy of such a work, taking the
advice of Talleyrand to a man who wanted
to upset the religion Of Jesus Christ and
start a new one, when he said, Go and
be crucified and then raise yourself from
the grave the third day!'
Those who propose to mend their nets
by secular and skeptical books are like
man who has just one week for fishing
and six of the days he spends in reading
lzaak Walton's 'Complete Angler, and
Wheatley's Rod and Line" and SCOTS
Fishing in Northern Waters and Put
mans wade Mecum of Fly Fishing for
Trout and then Saturday morning,
his last day out, goes to the river to ply
his art; but that day the fish will not bite,
and late on Saturday night he goes to his
home with empty basket
Alas! alas! IF, when the Saturday night
of our life drops on US, it shall be found
that we have spent our time in the libra
ries of worldly philosophy trying to mend
our nets, and we have only a few souls to
report as brought to God through our in
strumentalty, while some humble gospel
fisherman, his library made up of Bible
and an almanac, shall come home laden
with the results, his trophies all the souls
within fifteen miles of his log cabin meet
ing-house.
In the time of the great disturbance in
Naples in l649 Massaniello, barefootcd
fishing boy, dropped his fishing rod, and
by strange magnetism took command Of