Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-05-02


impulsively and hastily saying. 20
God, If | only may be honored among
my people will give to thee as burnt
offering the first person that comes
out of my house to welcome me-" But
when his beautiful daughter, robed in
white, was being bound to a stake.
and when the lighted torch was flung
among the facts piled around her
beautiful limbs. and when the tresses
of her hair floating in the winds were
eaten up by the hot, kissing flames,
and when her dying shrek was beard
above the wailings of the multitudes
that surrounded her funeral pyre. do
you believe the death of his only child
could in any way make Jephthah hap
pier because the disgrace of his birth
was forever wiped out? Instead of
Jephthah being the head Of his family.
now, by the death of his only child. he
was the last of his race. I can imag-
inc how a man reared In poverty and
one who knew the cravings of hunger
might long for unlimited wealth-aye.
and be ready to make almost any sac
rifice to achieve wealth - but when
wealth must be purchased at the price
of his own life's blood is that wealth
worth the struggle and the death?
The Divine Sacrifice.
THAT is a magnificent business
block" l say to you. THAT property
must be worth a great deal of money"
YES" you answer, "a fine property.
That property was built with flesh and
blood. The man who owned it is now
dead from overwork." Yes, that is the
sad commentary upon the methods by
which scores and scores of our great
fortunes were gathered. The men who
made them were the men who were
not allowed to live long enough to en-
joy them. Oh, my brother, like Jeph-
than, are you so anxious to achieve a
temporal success that you are willing
to sacrifice your hearts life in order to
win it?
But though cit is common custom to
regard Jephthah as one of the widest
characters of the Bible''-as DR.. Blake
once saba rough, needless man,
alike rash in vowing and heartless in
fulfilling" yet by the burning pyre
built by this mans sin we see in the
dying girls face one of the sweetest
characters in all history. The father
represents the man of the world. the
man of ambition, and in one sense the
man of selfish ambition and the man
of sin. The daughter represents in a
humble sense, the type of Jesus, as she
died for sin in which she was not a
participant The one character signi-
fies eternal disgrace. The other char
acter represents a daughters sacrifi-
cial blood flowing to wipe out that dis
grace. Upon the gloom of Jephthah's
painful history an ethereal brightness
shines. What can be more beautiful"
once said DR.. Wiseman, more wonder
full. than this pure and lovely maid,
brought up among bandits and far
from the tabernacle Of God. thus freely
offering herself as a thank offering for
the victories of Israel? And who can
fail to see in the story of the meek and
self sacrificing maiden a marvellous
and mysterious adumbration of bet
| ter sacrifice of another soul of an only
y .
of virgin holiness and heavenly purity,
| the sacrifice of Christ, who gave his
| spOtless soul to death for our sakes."
In this sweet story of the lovely maid
en- dying for her fathers sins can you
not. o man, learn the lesson of how
Christ died that you might live? Will
you not accept that divine sacrifice as
an 9tOnnTOpDt for rO17r, ci1
Renounce Sin.
The human and divine sacrifices of
| life! Who can overlook them? We
| glory in the fact when a hero phys
ically dies to physically save mankind.
| When Dr.. Robert Koch, the noted dis
| coverer Of the bacilli of tuberculosis,
| advocated the idea that the tubercuIo-
! sis Of cattle was not infectious for man,
| and young bacteriologist, to prove
| that theory false, inoculated himself
with the cattle tuberculosis germ and
| died as result Of the incubation, we
said: THAT is glorious, that is grand
| That young man died in order that we
might physically live. He died in order
to prove the necessity of our guarding
| dSdIuSl the OI the uuDlD
brute" But this young maiden of my
| text did more than to die in order that
her father might live. l can imagine
that in the crude belief of those days
it may have been held that the man
who failed to fulfill his deliberate VOW
would perish eternally. 1t may have
| been that Jephthah's, daughter yielded
| her life to avert that dreadful fate
| from her father. If so, how heroic
was her sacrifice! How he must have
| loved her for doing So while he be-
walled the rash VOW that had made it
| necessary. Have we no love for Christ.
whose death was rendered necessary
| by our transgressiOns? He who died
| to save US from the penalty of our sin
asks Us for our grateful love. Can we
withhold it? Let Us ever hate and re-
| nOunce the sin which he died to wipe
away. and let US give to HIM our
| hearts Alteration and conSncrata O11r