Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-07-29

communIonT wnom wouIu you rather
have for your pallbearers-the elders
of u Christian church or the compan-
ions whose conversation was full of
slang and innuendo? Whom would
you rather have for your eternal COM
panions-those men who spend their
evenings betting, gambling, swearing,
carousing and telling vile stories or
your little child, that bright girl whom
the Lord took? Oh, you would not
have been away so much nights, would
you, if you had known she was going
away so soon? Dear me, your house
has never been the same place since.
Your wife has never frightened up;
she has never got over it; she never
will get over it How long the even
ings are with no one to put to bed and
no one to whom to tell the beautiful
Bible stories! What a pity it is that
you cannot spend more evenings at
home in trying to help her bear that
sorrow! You can never drown that
grief in the wine cup. You can never
break away from the little arms that
used to be flung around your neck
when she used to say, Papa, do stay
nightv' You will never be able to wipe
away from your lips the dying kiss of
your little girl. The fascination of a
bad secret society is so great that some
times a man has turned his back on his
home when his child was dying of scar
let fever. He went away. Before he
got back at midnight the eyes had been
closed, the undertaken had done his
work, and the wife, worn out with
three weeks watching, lay unconscious
in the next room. Then the returned
father comes up stairs, and he sees the
cradle gone, and he says, what is the
matter" On the judgment day he will
find out what was the matter
Oh, man astray, God help you! 1 am
going to make very stout rope. You
know that sometimes a ropemaker will
take very small threads and wind them
together until after awhile they be-
come ship cable. And l am going to
take some very small, delicate threads
and wind them together until they
make very stout rope. 1 will take
all the memories of the marriage day
a thread of laughter thread of light,
a thread of music, q thread of ban
quoting, a thread of congratulations
and L twist them together, and 1 have
one strand. Then l take q thread of
the hour of the first advent in your
house, a thread Of the darkness that
preceded, and thread of the light that
followed, and thread of the beautiful
scarf that little child used to wear
when she bounded out at eventide to
greet you, and then a thread of the
beautiful dress in which you laid her
away for the resurrection, and then l
twist all these threads together, and l
have another strand. Then 1 take a
thread of the scarlet robe of a suffering
Christ, and a thread of the white raj
ment of your loved ones before the
throne, and a string Of the harp cheru-
bic, and a string of the harp seraphic,
and 1 twist them all together and L
have a third strand. "Oh," you say,
'either strand is enough to hold fast
a world" No; will take these strands,
and 1 will twist them together, and one
end of that rope l will fasten not to the
communion table, for it shall be remov-
ed; not to a pillar of the organ, for that
will crumble in the ages, but l wind
it round and round the cross of a SYM
pathizing Christ, and, having fastened
one end of the rope to the cross, throw
the other end to you. Lay hold of it!
Pull for your life! Pull for heaven!
copyright. 1901. Louis Klopsch, n. VI