Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-02-04

blOOmed with spontaneous flowers and
ruStled with harvests that owed moth
ing to pillow or hoe became hostile, and
bramble was substituted for rose, and
the panther groWled where before he
faWned, and horn and fang and hOOf
became belligerent. That Edenic eject
ment shows us as nothing else ever
could that idleness or only a few min
utes of employment a day are doom
ana overthrow. Put it down among
your blessings instead of your misfor-
tunes that you have to work hard with
brain or hand or foot or all three of
them.
Changes Bitter Into Sweet.
How many men do you know worth
$3.50, 900 who are devout and conSecrat-
ed and humble and generous and en-
plOying their means for the worlds re-
demption? You could count them up
on the fingers of your two hands even
if by accident or war you had lost one
or two of the fingers. AS to the realm
of personal attra ctiveness, how many
women radiant of cOuntenance and
graceful of form do you know who are
unaffected and natural of manner and
deeply pious before God, using their
beauty for the betterment of the world
and not for selfish purposes? I only
take the risk of asking the question
and leave to you the risk of answering
it. These things I say to show you
that in order to have the promise Of
the text fulfilled in your case it is not
necessary you have phenomenal world
ly success.
Notice, also, that God gives the right
eous the power to extract good out of
evil and by a divine chemistry to
change the bitter into the sweet and
the harmful into the beneficial. The
promise that it shall be we'll with you
does not imply that you are to be free
from trouble There is no escape from
that We all have family relations,
and some of them will be making exit
from this world, so that bereavement
is the universal inheritance. So also
is financial loss. The difference be-
tween the prOspered and those not
proSpered is the difference in the
amount they can afford to lose. The
more wealth q man has the more he
can lose, but one man can afford to
lose a million dollars where another
man cannot afford to lose one dollar.
On larger or smaller scale all suffer
financial loss. Amid the rapidity of
the revolutions of the wheel of nation
al and international finance monetary
perpleXity is as common as day or
night.
SO also misinterpretation and SLAM
der come to all who live active lives
Our actions, thoroughly honest and
n bOVnhO1r6 may cOT0a IIndnr S1IS1)i-
ciOn. Every courtroom at every term
of court hears illustrations of the delu-
sion of what is called circumstantial
evidence. Innocent men are fined or
imprisoned or electrocuted because of
an unfortunate conjunction of events.
What is true in courtrooms is true IL
all circles of domestic or social or polit-
ical or official life. You have been mis-
understood and misrepresented, or will
be misunderstood or miSrepresented.
Then how can my text be true? My
explanation is this: The man without
any divine grace in his heart finds in
these troubles irritation and unbelief
and melancholia and despair. A Chris
tan man finds in them submission and
enlarged views and divine support and
recOnSecratiOn. Bereavement to the
wording brings hard thoughts Of God
and a resistance so violent it dareS not
fully express itself. Bereavement
brings to the Christian the thought of
heavenly reunion and a more complete
laying hold of God, and a more tender
appreciation of the divine presence,
and deeper gratitude that we were per-
mitted to have the departed one so
nd nv
the sorrows of others and another evil
dence of Gods love, for whom the
Lord lOveth he chasteneth."
Health Better Than Riches.
Financial loss, which L just now said
is sure to come, never breaks up a man
who has strong faith in God. In most
cases it is a loss of surplus or it is the
punishment of luXuries. Most of the
wants of the prosperous classes are ar
tiiciaI wants. The late Mr.. Armour
of the $60,000000 estate pointed to one
of his clerks on ordinary salary and
said, THAT man has better appetite
than L, sleeps better nights and enjoys
life more than l do" Oh, the gigantic
miseries of those who have too much!
A man in SolomOn's time expressed as
philOSOphic and reasonable a wish as
any man of those times or of our times.
His name was Agur, and he offered a
prayer that he might never have a SUI
perabundance or a deficit, crying out,
Give me neither poverty nor riches"
On the one side he had seen the awful
struggle of the poor to get food and
clothes and shelter and to educate their
children, and on the other side he had
seen the equity foot, and the indiges-
ton, and the insomnia, and the anxiety
about large investments, and the threat
ened pareSiS often characteristic Of
those who are loaded up and loaded
down with too many successes. Those
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