The Marlboro democrat. [volume] (Bennettsville, S.C.) 1882-1908, 1901-02-08
30 ssss shiy. ssoh ssys eosaa ia j.. ,sYt
nsssa 80 Soy my net Nasnasd and iwili

revolution and q boti tqth he ssyayiys sSs ~
fittest,, and Il Wil Sread III, ss,yl a.f ~ Z
theologians say about .at yyan cnS ,
Sthonght.n I will leave thu shi !, awhile
and ! will GO ashore and 1t aay 81 srS
till nv net is nepded pa. DO that !, I.
brother,and you vii have no net left.In.
stead OF their helping you mend yooaar
pcts they will steal the pieces that re.
main. Better stay III the Gospel boat,
where you have Ill the means for mend
ing your net. What arc they? do you
asks answer all you need youhaYe
whore you are.-namcly, q Bible and q
placo to pray. The. more you study
evolution and adopt .whatSis calledad-
yanccd thought, the more useless you
will be. Stay in tho ship and mend
your net. That is where James, tho
son Iof Zebedce, and john Shissbrot ther,
staid That is where all who get their
nets mended stay. es4
I notice that all who leave the Gos-
pei boat and go ashore to mend their
nets stay there. Or. il they try again
to fish they do not catoh any thing
Get out of the Gospel boat and go up
into tho world to get your not mend
ed, and you will lives to sec the day
when you will feel like tho man yyh Q,
Ing forsnl1en christianity, sighed: 81
would give thousand pounds to feel
as l did In 1920" The timo will come
when you would bo willing to give a
thousand pounds to feel as you did in
1901. These men who have given up
their religion cannot help you a bit.
These dear brethren Of nll dcnomi-
nations, afflicted with. theological fidg-
cts, had better go to mending nots in-
stead Of brcalsing thema Before they
break up tho old religion and try to
foist on us a new religion let them go
through some great sacrifice for. God
that will prove them worthy for such
work, taking the advice of Tallyrand
to a man. who wanted to upset the re-
ligion of Jesus Christ and start new
one when he snid: go and be cruci-
fed and then raisc yourself from tho
grave tho third dayl" Those who
propose to mend their nets by seci,-
lar and skcptical books arc liko the
man who has just one week for fish
ing, and six of tho days he spends in
reading Izank Walton's Complete
Angler" and Wheatley's ''Rod and
Line" and Scott's "Fishing in Northern
Waters" and Pullman's "Vade Nfecum
OF Fly Fishing for Trout" and then
on Saturday morning, his last day out,
goes to tho river. to ply his art but
that day tho fish will not bite, and
late on Saturday night he goes to his
homo with empty basket Alas, alas!
II when tho Saturday night of our
lifo drops on us 1t shall bo 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 rs brought to God through
our instrumentality, while somo hum
bic fisherman, his library made sup Of
a Biblo aud an almanac, shall come
home laden with the results, his
trophies all the souls within Is miles
Of hisslog Ca bin meeting house,
In$the time of great disturbance in
Naples in 1o4s Nfassaniello, barefoot
ed fishing boy, dropped his fishing rod
and by strange magnetism took com
mnDd Of that city q: 100000 souls. He
took off his fishing jacket and put on a
robe OF gold in the presence Of bowling
inobs. He put his hand on his lip ms
a signal, and they were silent. He
waved his hand away from him, and
they retired 10 their homes. Armies
passed in review before him. He be-
came the nations idol. The rapid rise
and complete supremacy of that young
fisherman, Massaniello, has no parallel
In al history But something equal to
that and better than that is nm every,
day occurrence In Heaven. God takes
some of those who in this world were
flshorS OF men and who toiled very
hulnbly but because Of the way they
mended their notB and employed their
nets after they were mended He sud-
denly hoists them and robes t he III and
soepters them and crowns them ant,
makes them rulers over many cities,
and He marches armies of saved ones
before them III review. tf, ,t.r
But do not spend your time nshing
with hook md line. Why did not
James, the son of Zcbedee, 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 Zehedee
spend his afternoon trying to catch one
eel? No, that work WAS too slow
These men were not nlending hook
and line; they wero mcnding their
nets. So let the church OF God not be
content with having hero one soul and
next month another soul broughtinto
the Kingdom. Sweep all the seas with
nets-scoop nots, scino nets, dragnets,
all encompassing nets, and take the
treasures in by hundreds and thou
sands and millions, and nations will be
born in a day and the hcmispheres
quake with the tread OF a ransoming
God. Do you know what will be tho
two most tremendous hours in. our
Heavenly existence2 Among the quad.
rillionS Of ages which shall roll on
what two occasions will be to us tho
greatest? The day Of our arrival there
will be to us one Of tho two greatest.
Tho second greatest, r think will be
the day when we Shall have put in
parallel lines before us what Christ did
for us and what wedid for, Christ, the
ono so great, the other'so little. That
will be the only embarrassment etn
Heaven. My Lord and my God s. Wha t
will we do and what will wo say when
on one sldo are placed the Sayiours
great sacrifices for lis and our SIN all
sacrifices for Him; His exile, His h,i-
initiation, His agonies on one hand and
our poor, weak insufficient sacrifices
on tho other. To make the contrast
less overwhelming let us quickly mend
our nets, and, like the Galilean fisher
mon, may we be divinely helped to ca