Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1905-11-06
CalnaSe
Sermon
BY Rev.
Frank De Witt Talnaee, .. d.


to be one of the chief essentials of a
noble character. The text is Matthew V,
Al, whatsoever shall compel thee to 60
with him one mile, go with him twain"
What Sir Walter Scott was to the
moors and glens of old Scotland, ro-
mantle with their legends and folklore,
and what Charles Dickens was to the
quaint vernacular of the London
streets, and what Fenimore Cooper
was to the North American Indian,
with his wigwam and his campfires,
his hates and his loves, Frederic Rem
ington, the great American figure and
animal painter, has been to the habits
and customs, the comedies and TRACE
dies of the western cowboy, now al
most a relic of the past. Future stu
dents of our past history reading Theo-
dore Roosevelt's winning of the
West will gain a clearer idea of the
scenes and the people there described if
those four volumes are illustrated with
Remington's famous pictures - "The
Last Stand" 1.-The Crooked Trail"
''The Frontier Sketches" and "a Dash
For the Timber" But above all the
pictures that Frederic Remington has
sketched do not believe there are any
more powerful than those in which he
depicts the daring exploits of the mes
sengers of the pony expresses. Now
the east and the west have been married
by the wedding ring of the iron rail
and the swift locomotive dashes across
the continent, but in former times the
gold fields of California would have
been cut off from communication with
the busy east if it had not been for the
useful system of the pony relays.
Every thirty or forty miles there was
a station. This chain of stations
stretched clear across the continent.
Then between these stations every day
a cowboy would ride. Alone upon his
horse he rode forth with the mail and
with his saddlebags often loaded down
with gold and precious stones. He
rode straight out into the deserts and
over the prairies; he rode forth in de-
j6ance of Indian murderer and white
&skinned highwaymen and ferociouS
wild beast; he rode with his life de-
pending not so much upon the sureneSs
of his aim and the steadiness of his
gun as upon the swiftness of the four
footed beast he bestrode. There in
some of Frederic Remington's 'F'ron-
tier Sketches you can see the messen-
ger of the pony express riding with
a score of red skinned savages on his
trail. You can almost hear the pant
ings of his exhausted horse and the
whiZzing of the rifle balls as they fly
past the cowboys ears. There he is
digging in the spurs in his race with
death, or, rather, in his race for life.
Now, in order to get clear grasp of
my text we should take some of Rem
ington's Frontier Sketches in refer
ence to the pony express and give
them an oriental coloring and put them
among the Palestine hills of 1000
aye, of over 2,000-years ago.
Albert Barnes tells us that the word
compel of my text is of Persian ORR
gin. 1t comes from the royal court of
Cyrus the Great, who died in $50 B. c..
There was no postal system in that
day. King Cyrus planned system of
pony expresses all over his empire.
Thus by a system of relays of horses,
when the king wished to send royal
command to one of the governors of
his provinces, his message could be
handed from courier to courier with
the greatest expedition. As these cou
riers had to go through wild regions
like those Travelled by the messengers
of the pony express during the tifties
and the sixties, they had a right tC
compel any man they met to go with
them and protect them as the county
sheriff today has a right to compel you
or me to help him arrest an offender
against the law.
Simple Illustration.
This extensive system of pony ex,
presses not only spread throughout
Persia, but in Christ's time spread
through all the Roman empire and
Caesars provinces. Thus Jesus, in or
der to show how his disciples should
be willing to sacrifice for any right au-
thority, used a very simple and COM
mon illustration. He says, IF any
courier shall compel thee to go with
him one mile, go with him twain"
That means when an authority asks
you to do a certain amount of work
you should be willing to do twice what
he asks Can we not today make this
application Of sublime gospel conces-
sion TO the home and to our relations
with employers, our churches and the
: great world at large as well as to Cae-
sar's couriers?l
Christ's command Of cheerful sub
mission applies to the home AS in the
United States government the execu
tive, legislative and judicial depart
ments have their place and their sepa
). rate functions, so in the home ther'
are coordinate powers, each with it
duties and its rights. The HUSBAND
and wife. the parents and children, al
come under this divine injunction o
mutual concession, and in fulfilling i
VIII promote domestic happiness.
any one in the home has neesi of