Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1902-03-19


in DIR. Young's Might Thoughts, teach
ing in Cowper's Task. flaming IN
Charles Wesley's hymns and rushing
with archangelic splendor through Mil
toms Paradise Lost" The religion of
Christ has hung in studio and in gallery
of art and in Vatican the best pictures
Titian's Assumption, Raphael's Trans
figuration." Rubens' Descent from the
Cross" Claude's Burning Bush and
Angeles Last Judgment" Religion has
made the best music of the world
Haydn's Creation" Handel's Messiah"
Mozart's Requiem
| commend godliness as the best ment-
al discipline, better than bellies lettres
to purify the taste, better than mathe-
MATES to harness the mind to all intri-
cacy and elaboration better than logic to
marshal the intellectual forces for onset
and victory. 1t will go with Hugh Mil
Ter and show him the footprints of the
Creator in the red sandstone. Ii will go
with the botanist and show him celestial
glories encamped under the curtain of
water lilly. 1t viii go with the astron-
omer on the great heights where God
shepherds the great flock of worlds that
his voice as he calls them all by their
names.
Again / remark that godliness is profit
ale for ones disposition. Lord Ashley,
before he went into great battle, was
heard to offer this prayer: 20 Lord, L
shall be very busy today If | forget
thee, forget me not" With such a
Christian disposition as that a man is
independent of all circumstances. Our
piety will have a tinge of our natural
temperament. If a man be cross and
sour and fretful naturally, after he be-
comes a Christian he will always have
to be armed against the rebellion Of those
evil inclnations. But religion has tanned
the widest natures. 1t has turned fret
fulness into gratitude, dependency into
good cheer, and those who were hard and
ungovernable and uneompromising have
been made pliable and coneiliatory.
Influence of the Gospel.
A man cannot go forth with any human
weapons and contend successfully against
these Titans armed with uptorn noun
tains But you have known men into
whose spirit the influence of the gospel
of Christ came until their dispo, lion was
entirely changed. So it was with two
merchants in New York. They We're
very antagonistic. They had done all
they could to injure each other. They
were in the same line of business. One
of the merchants was converted to God.
Having been converted, he asked the
Lord to teach him how to bear himself
toward that business antagonist, and he
was impressed with the fact that it was
his duty when a customer asked for GER
tain kinds of goods which he had not,
but which he knew his opponent had, to
recommend him to go to that store. |
suppose that is about the hardest thing
a man could do; but, being thoroughly
converted to God, he resolved to do that
very thing. and, being asked for a GER
tain kind of goods which he had not. he
said, You go to such and such a store,
and you will get it," After awhile mer-
chant No. found these customers com
ing. so sent, and he found also that mer-
chant No. had been brought to God
and he sought the same religion. Now
they are good friends and good neigh
bors, the grace of God entirely changing
their dispositions.
oh" says some one. II have rough,
jagged, impetuous nature, and religion
can't do anything for me- Do you
know that Martin Luther and Robert
Newton and Richard Baxter had impet-
uDus and all consuming natures. yet the
grace of God turned them into the might
lest usefulness? A manufacturer cares
but very little for a stream that slowly
runs through the meadow, but values a
torrent that leaps from rock to rock
and rushes with mad energy through the
valley and out toward the sea. Along
that river you will find huttering shut
ties and grinding mill and flashing water
wheel And a nature the swiftest, the
most rugged and the most tremendous
that is the nature God turnsfinto greatest
usefulness. Oh, how many that have
been pugnacious and hard to please and
irascible and more bothered about the
mote in their neigGbor's eye than about
the beamlike ship timber in their own
eye who have been entirely changed by
the grace of God and have found out
that "godlness is profitable for the life
that now is as well as for the !'fe to
come"
Religion in Business.
Again | remark that religion is good
for worldly business. know the general
theory is the more business the less re-
ligion, the more religion the less business.
Not so. thought DR.. Hans in his "Biog-
raphy of a Christian Merchant" when
he says: HE grew in grace the last six
years Of his life more than at any time
in his life. During those six years he
had more business crowding him than at
any other time" In other words. the
more worldly business a man has the
more opportunity to serve God. Does re.
ligion exhilarate or retard worldly bust
MSS? is the practical question for you TO
discuss Does it hang, like a mortgage,
over the farm? Is it a bad debt on the
ledger? Is it a lien against the estate?
Does it crowd the door through which
customers come for broadcloths and
silks?
Now. religion will hinder your business
il it be a bad business or if ii be Il good
business wrongly conducted If you tell
lies behind the counter, il you use false
weights and measures, if you put sand
in sugar and beet juice in vinegar and
lard in butter and sell for one thing that
which is another thing then religion viii
interfere with that business. but law
full business, lawfully conducted, will find
the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ its
mightiest auxiliary.
Religion viii give an equipoise OF spirit.
1t viii keep you from ebullitions of tenn
per, and you know a great many fine
businesses have been blown TO atoms By
bad temper 1t will keep you from w9r-
riment about frequent loss, it viii keep
you Industrious and prompt: it will keep
you back from squandering and from dis.
sipation: il will give you a kindness Of