Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-01-28

mentality, while some humble gospel
| fisherman, his library made up of q
Bible and an almanac, shall come home
| laden with the results, his trophies all
the souls within 10 miles of his log
cabin meeting house.
The Fishers Crowned.
IL 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 100000 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 a 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
suddenly hOiStS them and robes them
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 over the lake,
and with a 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 hav-
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 q
day and the hemisphereS quake with
the tread Of ranSOming God. Do you
know what will be the two most ire
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
the two greatest. The second greatest,
think, will be the day when we shall
have put in parallel lines before us
what Christ did for us and what we
did for Christ, the one so great, the
other so little. That will be the only
embarrassment in heaven. My Lord
and my God, what will we do and what
will we say when on one side are
placed the SaviOur's great sacrifices
for us and our small sacrifices for him
his exile, his humiliation, his agonies
On one hand and our poor. weak, INSULT
cient sacrifices on the other? To make |
the contrast less overwhelming let us !
quickly mend our nets, and like the
Galilean fishermen, may we be divine |
~ helped to cast them on the right side |
of the ship.
copyright, 1901, by Louis Kopsch.l