Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1901-01-30

who has just one week fo@ sshing and
six Of the days he spends in reading LEAK
Walton's Complete Angler and Wheat.
leys Rod pad line and Scott's Fish
ing IN Northern Waters" and Pullman's
Wade Mecnm of Fly Fishing for Trout,
and then on 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 AlIs, alas. il
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 phi
losophy, trying TO mend our nets, and we
have only q few souls TO report as
brought to God through our instrumental
ity while some humble gospel fisherman,
his library made up of a Bible and an al
manae, shall come nome laden with the
results, his trophies all the souls within
fifteen miles OF his log cabin meeting
house.
In the line Of great disturbance in Ma
pies in l519 Massanielo, barefooted
fishing hey, dropped his fishing rod and
by strange magnetism took command of
that city of six hundred thousand souls.
He took OF his fishing jacket and put on
a robe of gold In the presence of howl
ing mobs. He put his hand on his lip as
4 signal, and they were silent. He waved
his hand away from him. ana they re-
tired to their homes Armies passed in
review before him. Tie became the ma
tion's idol. The rapid rise and complete
supremacy of that young fisherman Mas
saniello has no parallel in all history.
But something equal 10 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
vito toiled very humbly. but because of
the way they mended their nets and en-
ployed their nets after they were mendcd
b" suddenly HOSTS 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, Massanielios 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 mended 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
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 afternoon trying to
catch one eel? No. that work was too
slow. These men were not mending q
hook and line; they were mending their
nets. So let the church of God not be
content with having here one soul and
next month another soul brought into the
kingdom. Sweep all the seas with nets
scoop nets. seine nets, dragnets, all en-
comprising nets. and take the treasures
in by hundreds and thousands and mill
ions, and nations will be born in day
and the hemispheres quake with the
tread of ransoming God. Do you know
what will be the two most tremendous
hours in our heavenly existence? 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 viii be the only
embarrassment in heaven. My Lord and
my God What will we do aud what will
we say when on one side are placed the
Sayiour's great sacrifices for us and our
small sacrifices for him; his exile his hui
initiation, his agonies on one hand and
our poor, weak, insufficient sacrifices on
the other To make the contrast less
overwhelming let us quickly mend our
nets. and, like the Galiean fshermen.
may we be divinely helped to east them
on the right side of the ship.