The semi-weekly messenger., 1901-02-08

my own net. You see the WIND Is just
right, and it Is such a good time for fish,
ing, and the fish are coming in SO rapidly
that have to keep my eye and hand
busy. There are about 2OO,OOOOOO souls
wanting to get into the kingdom Of God,
and it will require all the nets and all the
fishermen of Christendom to safely land
them. Oh, brethren Of the ministry, let
us spend our time in fishing instead Of
fighting. But il I angrily jerk my net
across your net, and you jerk your net
angrily 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
worst thing possible while hauling souls
into the kingdom. Ny 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 mend
ing their own nets, and I rather think
that we who are engaged in Christian
work 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 will catch hun
dred souls where now we catch one.
Present religion as an intellectually and
we will fail. Out in the fisheries there
are set across the waters what are called
gill nets, ami the fish put their heads
through the meshes and then cannot with
draw them, because they are caught by
the gills. But gill nets cannot be Of any
service in religious work. Men are never
caught for the truth by their heads; it is
BY the heart or not at all. No argument
ever saved a man and no keen analysis
ever brought a 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.
A Soothing Omnipotence.
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 a soothing omnipo-
tence, the whole world would surrender
tomorrow, yea would surrender this hour?
The day before James A. Garfield was
inaugurated as president I was in the
cars going from Richmond to Washington.
a gentleman seated near to me in the
cars knew me, and we were soon in fa
miliar conversation. 1t was just after a
bereavement, and l was speaking to him
from an overburdened heart about the
sorrow / was suffering. Looking at his
cheerful face, / said: Il guess you have
escaped all trouble. / should judge from
your countenance that you have come
through free from all misfortune" Then
he looked at me with look l shall never
forget, and whispered in my ear: ''Sir.
you know nothing about trouble. My wife
has been in an insane asylum for II
years" And then he turned and looked
out of the window and into the night
with a silence I was too overpowered 10
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 q 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
horsehair thread of harshness and put in
a soft silken thread of Christian sympa-
thy. Yea, when you are mending your
nets tear out those old threads of gruff
ness and weave in q few threads OF pc
likeness and geniality. In the house Of
God let all Christian faces beam with q
look that means welcome. Say good
morning" to the stranger as he enters
your pew and at the close shake hands
with him and say, "How did you like the
music" Why, you would be to that man
panel of the door Of heaven; you would
be to him a note of the doXology that
seraphS sing when a new soul enters
heaven. / have in other days entered
pew in church, and the woman at the 9th
er end of the pew looked at me as much
as to say: "How dare you? This is my
pew, and 1 pay the rent for it," Well, l
crouched in the other corner and made
| myself as small as possible and felt as
though had been stealing something. So
there are people who have sharp edge
| to their religion, and they act as though
| they thought most people had been elect
| ed to be damned and they were glad of it.
| Oh, let us brighten up our manner and
| appear in gentlemanliness or ladyhood.
| The object in fly fishing is to throw the
| fly far out and then let it drop gently
| down and keep it gently rising and fall
ing with the waters and not plunge it like
q man-of-war's anchor, and abruptness
| and harshneSs of manner must be avoid
| ed in our attempt at usefulness l know
a man IN New York who is more sun
| shiny and genial when he has dyspepsia
| than when he is not suffering from that
depressing trouble. have found out his
secret. When he starts out in the morn
ing with such depression, he asks for spe-
cial grace to keep from swapping up any
body that day and puts forth additional
| determination to be kindly and genial.
and by the help of God he accomplishes
| it. Many of our nets need to be mended
4 in 10
the rough threads taken out and the
bright threads and the golden threads Of
| Christian geniality woven in.
| In addition to this we need to mend our
nets with more threads of patience. 1t is
no rare thing for fisherman to spend
one whole day before he can take St.
| Lawrence pike. or an Ohio salmon, or i
Long Island pickerel. or a Cayuga black
bass, or Delaware catfish, and he does
that day after day without particular dis
| couragement. But what lack of pa