Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1902-09-22


way that vigorous massage starts
the sluggish blood coursing through
the arteries and veins of our invalid
body. 1t is when an army is invading
a foreign land that the commanding
general is most careful about his scouts
and sentYies and countersigns and pow
der and bullets ans guns and commits
sary supplies. 1t is when a man feels
that he is completely surrounded by
rivals and by honest critics who do not
believe in the way he is doing that he
puts forth his best energies and lives
up to his highest standard.
Learn to Do Better.
The effect which the attack of an
honest enemy ought to have upon our
lives was once illustrated by noted
preacher. He picttred flock of mi
grating birds being shot at by a fowler.
At the first discharge of the hunters
gun the migrating birds merely give a
few strokes of their powerful wings
and fly higher At the next discharge
they fly still higher; at the next, higher
and higher until they are out of range
Of their enemy's bullets. The true eff
feet of an honest critics attacks should
be to make us fly higher and still high
er into the spiritual lfe-to fly higher
and higher until we come closer and
closer to God. 1t was the attacks and
SneerS and deriSiveremarkSh hurled at the
young statesman that nerved Benjamin
Disraeli to become the great leader of
the house of commons and the favorite
= -
the harsh criticism of an English naval
officer that made Admiral Farragut
firmly set his teeth and lips together
and redouble his energy when he drove
his wooden ship past the supposed i'm
passable batteries Of New Orleans, and
it is the deserved criticisms of our enc
mics that ought to make us more con-
secrated to our life's work and more
willing to make sacrifices to accom-
plish our object.
But there is Christian as we'll as an
un-Christian way of meeting the criti-
| ciSms of rivals and of those who are
jealous Of our successes. One way is
to do as Plato, the great disciple of
Socrates, did when he was told that
even the boys in the streets were laugh
ing at his singing. He answered,
''Then l must learn to sing better, so
that they will not laugh" The other
way is to do as Alexander Pope, the
vain and representative poet Of Eng
land, used to do. Instead of going
ahead and doing the work that God
gave him to do, and on account of his
enemies criticisms doing it better and
better all the time, he wasted most of
his life in chickering's and backbiting
and in trying to destroy the reputation
of those who were attacking him. The
one way is to do as d. L. Moody did.
He made it the rule of his life to never
individually attack a person who had
attacked him. The more Mr. Moody
was personally assaulted and misrepre-
sented the more he would go to God in
prayer and ask the Divine Father to
make his life so pure and true that
there might not remain in his heart
any cause for the charge which his en-
emies were making. The other way is
to do as many of us are doing. When
a neighbor or a critic makes. any derog-
atory statement about us and our
| WOIh, we pTONt lldl we are IlOl ldlSeiy
condemned in all particulars, that at
least we have the fault of retaliation,
because we go hunting for the faults
in our neighbours lives instead of try
ing, with divine help. to correct the
evils in our own.
Rise by the Grace of God.
Thus, my brother, want you, by the
grace of God, to rise higher and higher
in the spiritual life until at last you are
at an altitude above and out of earShot
of the buzzing sound of the locusts of
fault finding enemies. / want you to
rise so high in the spiritual life that
you will not care what people may say
or think about you or yours as long as
you can bring these people to love and
live for Christ. Humanity speaking, il
is awfully hard to bear the petty an
nOyances of your neighbors, criticisine
: you and saying mean things about your
: wife and children. 1t is hard, from 9
human standpoint, to refrain from
J f1inging a stone at the locusts of evi
: naggings which are buzzing about yor
: and your loved ones. But by the grace
t of God you can live down these petty
E apnoyances. You can go on doing your
: work, even as Christ went on doing hi:
5 work, in spite of the jeers and tn,
? SCOTS which the Pharisees uttered
t against him and his disciples.
! If you are absorbed in your Divin,
D Masters work, you will receive suffi
: cient grace to make you Indifferent t,
the little annoyances caused by wha
Y people may say against you. You will
Y be like that gateman whom Major Col
:. some years ago saw in a Chicago de
a pot. 1t was during a bitterly COLI
n night. Many male passengers wer
f grumbling and complaining becaus
= this gateman made every one of thes
n men unbutton his coat and show hi
d ticket before he could go to his train
s my friend" said Major Cole, ''you d
S not seem very popular with the passer