Connecticut western news., 1902-03-20


 Cowper's Task" flaming in Charles Wesley's hymns and rushing with archangelic splendor through Milton's Paradise Lost" The religion of Christ has hung in studio and in gallery of art and in Vatican the best pictures Titian's Assumption" Raphaers '"Transf1guration," Rubens' Descent From the Cross," Claude's Burning Bush" and Angelo's Hast Judgment" Religion has made the best music of the world-Haydn's Creation" Han ders Messiah" Mozart's Requiem" Is it possible that a religion which builds such indestructible monuments and which lifts its ensign on the high est promontories of worldly power can have any effect upon a mans intellect but elevation?
 Now, commend godliness as the best mental discipline, better than belles lettres to purify the taste, better than mathematics to harness the mind to all intricacy and elaboration, better than logic to marshal the intellectual forces for onset and victory. It will go with Hugh Miller and show him the footprints of the Creator in the red sandstone. It will go with the botanist and show him celestial glories encamp- ed under the curtain of water lily. It win go with the astronomer on the great heights where God shepherds the great flock of worlds that wander on the hills of heaven answering his voice as he calls them all by their names.
 -a~ knk fo profitable for ones disposition. Lord Ashley. before he went into a great battle, was heard to offer this prayer: 70 Lord, shall be very busy today! If I forget thee, forget me not" With such a Christian disposition as that man is independent of all circum- stances. Our piety will have a tinge of our natural temperament If man be cross and sour and fretful naturally, after he becomes a Christian he will always have to be armed against the rebellion of those evil inclinations. But religion has tanned the widest natures. It has turned fretfulness into gratitude, despondency Into good cheer, and those who were hard and ungovernable and uncompromising have been made pli- able and conciliatory. Good resolution, reformatory effort. will not effect the change. 1t takes a mightier arm and a mightier hand to bend evil habits than the hand that bent the bow of Ulysses, and it takes a stronger lasso than ever held the buffalo on the prairie
 Influence of the Gospel.
 A man cannot go forth with any hu- man weapons and contend successfully against these Titans armed with up torn mountains. But you have known men into whose spirit the influence of the gospel of Christ came until their disposition was entirely changed. So it was with two merchants in New York. They were 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, be asked the Lord to teach him how to bear himself toward that business antagonist. and he was i'm pressed with the fact that 1t was his duty when a customer asked for cer- 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 isabout the hardest thing a man could do; but. being thoroughly converted to God. be resolved to do that very thing. and. being asked for cer- tain kind of goods which he had not, he said. You go to such and such a store. and you will get it." After nv customers coming. so sent, and he found also that merchant No. l had been brought to God. and he sought the same religion. Now they are good friends and good neighbors. the grace of God entirely changing their disposi- lions.
 ''Oh." says some one, 'T have a rough. jagged. impetuous nature, and religion can't do anything for me" Do you Newton and Richard Baxter had im- petuous and all consuming natures, yet the grace of God turned them into the mightiest usefulness? A manufactur- CT 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 ener- gy through the valley and out toward the sea. Along that river you will find duttering shuttles and grinding mill and flashing water wheel And a ma ture the swiftest. the most rugged and the most tremendous-that Is the na- ture God turns into greatest useful ness. Oh. how many that have been >pugnacfous and hard to please and irascible and more bothered about the mote in their neighbor'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 ''godliness is profitable for the life that now is as we'll as for the life to come"
 Religion In Business.
 Again remark that religion Is good for worldly business. I know the gen eral theory is the more business the less religion, the more religion the less business. Not so, thought pr. Hans in his Biography of a Christian Mer- chant' 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 bust ness a man has the more opportunity to serve God. Does religion exhilarate or retard worldly business? Is the prac- dcal question for you to discuss. Does 1t hang. like mortgage. over the farm :? Is 1t bad debt on the ledger? Is 1t g. lien against the estate? Does it crowd the door through which customers come for broadcloths and silks?
 Now, religion will hinder your busi- ness if 1t be bad business or if 1t be good business wrongly conducted If you tell lies behind the counter, If you use false weights and measures, If you put sand in sugar and beet juice In vim egar and lard in butter and sell for one. thing that which is another thino tba,