Connecticut western news., 1901-01-31

AhC hIuEdoDl OI 1uAl, dlO II W III require all the nets and all the fisher men of Christendom to safely land them. Oh, brethren of the ministry, let us spend our time in fishing instead of fighting. But if I angrily jerk my net across your net, and you jerk your net angrily across mine. we will soon have two broken nets and no fish. The French fisheries, and ecclesiastical war is the worst thing possible while haul Ing souls into the kingdom. My friends, I notice in the text that James, the son of Zebedee, and John. his brother, were busy not mending somebody else's nets. but mending their own nets. and rather think that we who are engaged in Christian work in this opening cen tury will require all our spare time to mend our own nets. God help us in the important duty.
 Need of Common Sense.
 In this work of repair we need to put into the nets more threads of common sense. When we can present religion as great practicality, we will catch a hundred souls where now we catch one. Present religion as an intellectu- ality, and we will fail. Out in the fish cries there are set across the waters what are called gill nets, and the fish put their heads through the meshes and then cannot withdraw them, because they are caught by the gills. But gill nets cannot be of any service In reli- gious 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, helpfulness, 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 a soothing omnipotence the whole world would surrender tomorrow-yea, would sur render this hour. The day before James A. Garfield was inaugurated 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 famil- jar conversation. It was just after a bereavement, and I was speaking to him from an overburdened heart about the sorrow I was suffering. Looking at his cheerful face, I said: ''I guess you have escaped all trouble. l should judge from your countenance that you have come through free from all mis- fortune" Then be looked at me with a look l shall never forget and whis- pered in my ear: "Sir, you know noth- ing about trouble. My wife has been in an is.sane asylum for 15 years" And then he turned and looked out of the window and into the night with si- lence I 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 mountain is feather. That woman seated next to you in church has grief the recital of which would make your body, mind and soul shud- der.
 The Sflken Thread.
 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 sympathy. Yea, when you are mend ing your nets tear out those old threads of gruffness and weave in a few threads of politeness and genial ity. In the house of God let all Chris tian faces beam with 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 a 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. I have in other days entered a pew in church and the woman at the other end of the pew looked at me as much as to say: "How dare you? This IS ny pew fhuu pay lhC iShI hoA It. Well, crouched In the other corner and made myself as small as possible and felt as though l had been stealing something. So there are people who have a sharp edge to their religion, and they act as though they thought most people had been elected to be damned and they were glad of it. Oh, let us h,.{r on r,,o 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 falling with the waters, and not plunge 1t like a man-of-war's anchor, and abruptness and harshness of man. ner must be avoided in our attempt at York who is more sunshiny and genial when he has dyspepsia than when he is not suffering from that depressing trouble. I have found out his secret When he starts out in the morning with such depression, he asks for spe- cial grace to keep from snapping up anybody that day, and puts forth addi- ~&SA&A NStNA eoAA hO bO hAholg dhu genial, and by the help of God he ac- complishes it. Many of our nets need to be mended in these respects, the black threads and the rough threads taken out, and the bright threads and the golden threads of Christian genial ity woven in.
 In addition to this we need to mend our nets with more threads of patience. It is no rare thing for a fisherman to spend one whole day before he can take a St. Lawrence pike, or an Ohio salmon, or Long Island pickerel, or a Cayuga black bass, or a Delaware cat fish, and he does that day after day without particular Encouragement. But what a lack of patience if we do not immediately succeed in soul catch ing. We are apt to give 1t up and say, T will never try again." Into all our nets we need to weave all along the edge and all through the center great, long stout threads of Christian patience. How patient God has been with us! Can we not be patient with
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