Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1902-07-14

Il co not pear Sucn people any Ill Will, |
but l would prefer not to have them
around my person. They might steal
or perhaps they might lead my chill |
dren astray, and were such among my !
help would dismiss them at once"
Some time ago l stood in the store of |
q personal friend. While there gen.
tleman who was a member of the Chi.
cago detective force entered to buy
some goods. This officer sharply looked
at one of the clerks. Then he came
over to the merchants side and said
"Mr. So-and-so, that clerk is an ex-
convict He served a term in Joliet
penitentiary. You had better keep an
eye upon him." Although that ex-con-
Wet was a good clerk and had been in
the employ of my friend for nearly
two years, he was Immediately dis
charged. When l spoke up in his
favor and begged that he be retained
and given a chance to live a good life,
my friend answered: mo, Mr.. Tai
mage; that man is able to steal every
year thousands of dollars without my
knowing it. / cannot run the risk"
So the poor clerk was driven out of
! that store and perhaps driven into a
future Of crime.
| sinking an Evil Past.
But though it is so difficult for man
to lead a Christian life who has had an
evil past, yet if there are any such here
today bring to you the salutations Of
the saints in Caesars palace. l want to
encourage you with the fact that, just
Of he, fnS of
have been physical weaklings, so some
Of the greatest of Christian heroes
have been those who have sinned even
worse than you have sinned. Harry
Monroe, who for years has run the Pa
cific Garden mission of Chicago and
who has been instrumental in saving
thousands of souls, was-what? A
college graduate? A member of
Christian church and a Christian
home? No. He was q converted gam
bier Jerry McAuley of New York,
who did so much for the slums of New
York, was a drunkard and a prize
fighter. John Newton was once vilely
dissolute and depraved, though in after
life he wrote the noted hymn:
saw One hanging on a tree
In agony and blood,
Who fixed his languid eyes on me
AS near the cross stood.
Sure never till my latest breath
Can l forget that look;
1t seemed to charge me with his death,
Though nee word he spoke.
John Newton said that when he first
saw Christ hanging there upon the
cross he himself was wallowing in the
lowest depths of sin. John Bunyan
the dreamer was John Bunyan the
blasphemer. John Summerfield the
saint, about whom we have already
spoken, was John Summerfield the de-
PRAYED. Saul the chief of sinners be-
came Paul the martyred saint. Oh,
my brother, if the grace of God could
come into such sinful lives and recreate
and sustain them, surely the grace of
God is sufficient to recreate and sus-
tain us, no matter how black may have
been our dissolute past
And | bring to you who have an evil
past this message from the saints in
Caesars palace, because the man who
has publicly sinned, the man who has
been loathsomely vile, is the man who
has an especial mission to save souls
for Jesus Christ. You know as no one
else knows how awful is the power of
temptation. You know as no one else
knows how difficult it is for one who
has been social outcast to try to live
again among respectable social sur
roundings. You can speak as Mary
Magdalene could speak. You can plead
as st. Della could plead who was once
kh0 %o1 D;pI +I,n Df+ l,o
New York slums. Although st. Della
had such an evil past, yet her life, I'M
der the power of the Holy Ghost be-
came so pure and sweet and infiuen-
tial that the rich and the poor, the pure
and the depraved alike the old as well
as the young, sobbed over her casket.
You can speak from the heart. as John
B. Cough spoke to the drunkards, be-
cause you yourself have seen the phan-
toms of delirium tremens moving them
selves Alright in the cup until at last
they would bite like a serpent and sting
like an adder. Struggling Christians
you who have had an evil past, you
can plead for Christ in the highways
and the hedges of sin as the saints
who had an evil past could speak in
: Caesars palace. Those saints today
, are now placing their hands of holy or
dination upon your head that you may
go forth and save your sinful fellow
men.
Encouragement For the Unfortunate
would also encourage today those
Christians who are compelled by force
} of circumstances to live and work will
nx-iI 1Y,r
man who is standing behind the sam,
r counter with you in the store is an in
| fdel; perhaps some of your classmate.
1 at school or in college are out and on
l scoffers against the word of God; per
! haps your own father and brothers ar,
unbelievers and every day your faitl
e in Jesus Christ is made an object O.
y ridicule. ne1hanS what is the worst q