Connecticut western news., 1901-01-31
triunpliant IaIt

everlasting faith.
 Oh, this important work of mendirg our nets. If we could get our nets right, we would accomplish more in soul saving in the next year than we have In the last 20 years. But where shall we get them mended? Just where old Zebedee and his two boys mended their nets-where you are. James and John had no time to go ashore. They were not fishing for fun, as you and do In summer time. 1t was their live lihood and that of their families. They mended their nets where they were-iI the ship. "Oh," says some one. "I mean to get my net mended, and 1 will go down to the public library, and I will see what the scientists say about evo- lution and about the survival of the fittest,' and 1 will read up what the theologians say about advanced thought I will leave the ship awhile and I will go ashore and stay there till my net is mended." Do that, my broth CT, and you will have no net left. In stead of their helping you mend your net they will steal the pieces that re- main. Better stay in the gospel boat where you have all the means for mending your net. What are they, do you ask. I answer all you need you have where you are-namely, a Bible and a place to pray. The more you study evolution and adopt what Is call ed advanced thought the more useless you will be. Stay in the ship and mend your net. That is where James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his broth CT, staid. That is where all who get their nets mended stay.
 Avoid Denominational Strife.
 I notice that all who leave the gospel boat and go ashore to mend their nets stay there, or, If they try again to fish, they do not catch anything. Get out of the gospel boat and go up into the world to get your net mended, and you will live 10 see the day when you will feel like the man who, having forsaken Christianity, sighed, Il would give thousand pounds to feel as l did in 1S20.' The time will come when you would be willing to give a thousand pounds to feel as you did in 1901. These men Sho have given up their re. ligion cannot help you bit.
 These dear brethren of all denomina- tions, afflicted with theological fidgets, had better go 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 new one, when he said, Go and be crucified and then raise yourself from the grave the third dayp' Those who propose to mend their nets by secular and skep- tical books are like a man who has just one week for fishing and six of the days he spends In reading Isaak Walton's Complete Angler" and Wheatley's Rod and Line," and Scott's Fishing In Northern Waters" and Pullman's Wade Mecum of Fly Fish ing For Trout" and then on Satur- day morning, his last day out, goes to the river to ply his art; but that day the fish will not bite, and late on Sat urday 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 libraries of worldly philosophy trying to mend our nets, and we have only a few souls to report as brought to God through our instru- mentality, while some humble gospel fisherman, his library made up of a Bible and an almanac, shall come home laden with the results, his trophies all the souls within 15 miles of his log cabin meeting house.
 The Fishers Crowned. .-.'.
 In the time of great disturbance in Naples in 1649, Massaniello, a bare footed fishing boy, dropped his fishing rod, and by strange magnetism took command of that city of 60O,0O0 souls. He took of his fishing jacket and put on a robe of gold In the presence of bowling mobs. He put his hand on his lip as signal and they were silent. He waved his hand away from him and they retired to their homes. Ar mics passed In review before him. He became the nations idol. The rapid rise and complete supremacy of that young fisherman, Massaniello, have no parallel in all history. But something equal to that and better than that is an everyday occurrence in heaven. God takes some of those who in this world were fishers of men and who toiled very humbly. but because of the way they mended their nets and employed their nets after they were mended, he St166 l,Ns sSfe %h0v, and scepters them and crowns them and makes them rulers over many cities, and he marches armies of saved ones before them in review-Massa- niellos unhonored on earth but radiated in heaven. The fisher boy of Naples soon lost his power, but those people of God who have kept their nets mend ed and rightly swung them shall never lose their exalted place, but shall reign forever and ever and ever. Keep that reward in sight.
 But do not spend your time fishing with hook and line. Why did not James, the son of Zebedee, sit on the wharf at Cana, his feet hanging lover the lake, and with long pole and a worm on the hook dipped into the wave wait for some mullet to swim up and be caught? Why did not Zebedee spend his after noon trying to catch one eel? No, that work was too slow. These men were not mending a hook and line; they were mending their nets. So let the church of God not be content with hay ing here one soul and next month an- other soul brought into the kingdom. Sweep all the seas with nets, scoop nets, seine nets, drag nets, all encom- passing nets, and take the treasures in by hundreds and thousands and mil lions, and nations will be born in a day and the hemispheres quake with the tread of ransoming God. Do you know what will be the two most tre- mendous hours in our heavenly exist ence? Among the quadrillions of ages which shall roll on what two occasions will be to us the greatest? The day of our arrival there will be to us one of