Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1901-02-01

You ASK. answer all you need YOU
have where you are-namely. a Bible
and place to pray. The more you
study evolution and adopt what Is call
ed advanced thought the more useless
you will be. Stay in the ship and
mend your net. That is where James,
the son OF Zebedce. and John. his broth
err, staid. That is where all who get
their nets mended stay.
Avoid UNCONVENTIONAL strife.
L notice that all who leave the gospel
boat and go ashore to mend their nets
stay there, or. IL they try again to fish,
they do not catch anything. Get out of
the gospel boat and go up into the
world to get your net mended. and YOU
viii live to see the day when you will
feel like the man who. having forsaken
Christianity, sighed, ~ would give a
thousand pounds to feel as I did In
1920" The time will come when you
would be willing to giye n thousand
pounds to feel as you did in 1901
These men who have given Up their re-
lieion cannot help you bit.
These dear brethren of all ienomina-
tons, afflicted with theological fidgets.
had better SO to mending nets instead
or breaking them. Before they break
up the old religions let them go through
some great sacrifice for God that viii
prove them worthy Of such work.
taking the advice of Talleyrand TO a
man who wanted to upset the religion
of Jesus Christ and start a new one.
when he said, Go and be crucihed and
then raise yourself from the grave the
third dayr' Those who propose TO
mend their nets by secular aud skep-
teal books are like a man who has
just one week for fishing and six of
the days he spends in reading Isaak
Walton's Complete Angler" and
Wheatley's Rcd ana Line" and SCOTS
Fishing In Northern Waters" and
Pullman's wade Mecum Of Fly Fish
ing For Trout" and then on Satur.
day morning. his last day out, goes to
the river to ply his art; but that day
the fish will not bite, and late on Sat
urday night he goes to his home with
empty basket. Alas, alasi If, when the
Saturday night of our life drops on us.
1t shall be found that we have spent
our time in the libraries of worldly
philosophy trying to mend our nets,
and we have only few souls to report
ms brought to Gcd through our instru-
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.
In the time of great disturbance in
Naples in 1649, Massaniello, a bare
rooted fishing boy. dropped his fishing
rod, and by strange magnetism took
command of that city of 600,OGO souls.
He took of his fishing Jacket and put
on robe of gold in the presence OF
bowling mobs. He put his hand ON
his lip as signal and they were silent.
He waved his hand away from him
and they retired to their homes. Ar
mics passed i'm 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 i'm this world
were fishers of men and who toiled
very humbly, but because of the way
they mended their nets ard 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 I'm review-Massa-
niellos unhonored On earth but radiated
in heaven. The fisher boy OF Naples
soon lost his power, but those peopie
OF God who have kept their nets mend
Cd 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 worm on
the hook dipped into the wave walt 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 hay
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 n
day and the hemispheres quake with
the tread OF a ransoming God. Do ycu
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 viii be TO us one of
the two greatest. The second greatest.
l 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
Gaiilean fishermen. may we be divine
~ helped to cast them on the right side |
OF the ship.
Copyright, 1901. by Louis Rlopsch.l
The Episcopal Church on Divorce.
A good many persons seem to have
received the fmpression that the Ennis /