Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1902-01-22

what we borrow from our parents in
their good example and their hard work
wrought for us in our journey from cradle
TO manhood or wOmanhood for all the
ages to come we ought 10 be paying back
The halleluiahs Of heaven will be re-
turned for crucifxion agony.
Hayden the painter said his ruin be-
gan the day he began to borrow money,
and he wrote in his diary, Here began
debt and obligation, out of which | have
never been and never shall be extricated
as long as | live" DIR. johnson said:
do not aceustom yourself to consider
debt only as an inconvenience You will
find it a calamity" We have right to
borrow for the absolute necessities, ex-
pecting to pay back again, but we ought
never TO borrow for the luxuries Ac-
cording to the Laws of Amasis," in
Egypt if a man died without paying that
which he had borrower he was deprived
Of all obsequies. If that law were in
vogue in our times. how many postponed
and impossible funerals!
Superiority of God.
TIL, Sc students in the valley Of palms
by the Jordan had a physical strength
and hardihood that would help them N
their mental and spiritual achievements.
We who are toiling for the worlds bet
terment need Drawn as well as brain,
strong bodies as well as illumlned minds
and consecrated souls. Many of those
who are now doing the best work in
church and state got muscle and power
of endurance from the fact that in early
life they were compelled TO use ax or
pillow or fail or hammer, while many who
were brought up in the Injuries of life
give out before the battle is won. They
are keen and sharp of mind, but have no
physical endurance. They have the AK
head, but no handle. The body is the
handle of the soul.
Let all those who toll for their educa-
ton remember they are especially favor
ed, and if things go against them and
the ak head should fly the helve that very
hinderment may some time turn out adj
vantageously, as the accident by the river
Jordan, which seemed to finish the young
students capacity to help build the new
seminary, resulted in u splendid demon
stration of the power Of Elisha God to
help any one who helps himself. No AK
that was ever welded has wrought so
well as that ak, the handle and head of
which parted.
Notice, also, how God is superior 70
every law that he has made, even the
strongest law of nature, the law of gravi-
tation. The stick that Elisha threw into
the Jordan foated, but the ak head sank.
BY memorable law it must go down into
the depths of the Jordan, yet without so
much as a touch the hard, heavy metal
sought the surface There it is, the float
ing ak head. What a rebuke to those
who reject miracles on the ground that
they are contrary to nature, as though
the law were stronger than the God who
made the law, Again and again in Bible
times was that law revoked! Witness
the scene on the banks of the same Jor-
dan, where, in after time, the ak head
sank and rose. Elijah stood there, wear
ing cape of shecpskin, when there was
mighty stir in the air and a flashing
equipage descended. Elijah stepped into
it, and on wheels OF fire, drawn by horses
of fire, he rose. Fifty men for three
days searched the mountains to see il
the body of Elijah had not been dropped
among the rocks and picked at by birds
of prey, but the search was in vain. The
law of gravitation had been defeated.
Wonders of Divine Power.
There Christ stood by his disciples on
the Mount of Olives after his coming out
Of the sepulcher No ladders let down
for his ascension, but his feet lift from
the hill. and he goes up until the curtain
of cloud drops, and he is invisible. Law
of gravitation again embarrassed. Enoch,
Methuselah's father escaping death,
went up bodily and will have no need of
resurrection So will all the good who
shall be still alive at the end of the
world. They will not need wings. Every
one of the millions of our planet who
loved and served the Lord, if then alive,
will 'be caught up" as the Bible says,
body as we'll as soul, the law of gravita-
ton paralyzed. God mightier than any
law he ever created. Oh. like the mira
cles because they show God indepen-
dent of everything.
Notice also the divine power in the
backwoods. Wonderful things We're dene
at the cities of Jericho and Jerusalem
and Babylon and Nineveh, and the great
cities of our time have seen the divine
power, but this miracle of my text was IN
the backwoods, far away from the city,
in the lumber districts, where the stu
dents had gone to cut timber for the
new theological seminary. And if this
sermon shall come, as il will come, like
my other sermons for the last thirty
years, without missing a week let me
say to those far away from the house of
God and in the mountain districts that
my text shows the divine power in the
backwoods. The Lord by Every stream
as he certainly was by the Jordan, on
every mountain as surely as he was on
Mount Zion on every lake as on Tiberias,
by every rock as by the one whose gush-
ing waters slaked the thirst Of the
marching Tsraelites.
Do not feel lonely because your near
est neighbor may be miles away, because
the width Of the continent may separate
you from the place where your cradle
was rocked and your fathers grave was
dug. Weakened though you may be by
lions roar or panther's scream, God will
help you, whether at the time the forest
around you raves in the midnight hurri-
cane or you suffer from something quite
Insignificant like the loss of an ak head.
Take your Bible out under the trees, IL
the weather will permit, and after you
have listened to the solo of a bird in tie
tree tops or tne lobS meter psdlH Oh tHE
thunder, read those words Of the Bible.
which must have been written out Of
doors: THE trees Of the Lord are full of
sap. the cedars Of Lebanon which he
hath planted. whore the birds make their
nests; as for the stork, the fir trees are
her house The high hills are refuge
for the wild goats and the rocks for the
COMES. Thou makest darkness, and it is
night, wherein all the beasts Of the for