Norwich bulletin., 1916-09-04
WOULD SETTLE ALL
 OUR LABOR TROUBLES

WOULD SETTLE ALL
 OUR LABOR TROUBLES Central Baptist Pastor Says Program of Jesus Would RevoIutionize So- eiety.
 After his annual vacation Rev. Joel 5. Slocum, D. D., returned to his pull pit at the Central Baptist church on Sunday morning and was welcomed back by large number of his par 1sh1oners who were present at the service. Rev. pr. slocum chose Roads as his topic and his text was taken from John IA: 5. Am the Way. In part Rev. Dr. Slocum said:
 Country roads have a fascination all their own. This is especially the case when you go over them for the first time.
 They are interesting because of their diversity. There are peaceful roads that rush along the valleys and there are rugged roads that climb the hills. There are woodsy road that wind through the shady forests and there are roads that lead across the open spaces under the blazing sun There are winding roads that follow the curve of the rivers and there are zig- gag roads that lift themselves across the very mountains.
 There are many good roads and there are also some bad roads.
 Roads are interesting because they go somewhere. Travelling through an unfamiliar country. one finds himself speculating as to where this road goes and where that one goes. These new roads are interesting because they are new and we find ourselves picturAng what farms and homeSteads may lie along their course, what brooks and rivers they may span. And then it is also true that old roads have their charm. We love them be- cause we have travelled them so many times.
 Youth, writing of his native city, Portland, Maine, says, in the opening stanza:
 Often I think of the beautiful town
 That is seated by the sea;
 Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old
 town
 And my youth comes back to me.
 the pleasant streets of memory the highways and byways of experi- ence! The short cut across the fields to a neighbours, or to the village store, or to the village church. The road to the old mill pond or the lake or the old swimming hole. The path to the spring at the foot of the hill. The old paths are associated with some of the dearest experiences of our life.
 A very refreshing part of my sum- mer experience, this year, was the large amount of time l was permit ted to spend with friends in their au- tos. Down on Cape May where New Jersey juts down into Delaware Bay the whole country for scores of miles is as level as a floor and the main roads are well nigh perfect. It was an ideal sort of existence to skim along those yellow, dustless roads in our visits to beautiful Q summer ' resorts along the Atlantic shore. But one day in our own Connecticut near the end Of the vacation season we spent a golden afternoon among the hills town of eastern Connecticut. This time the motor was a horse; and it seemed good to go slowly for once, for we had almost forgotten what it we'll acquainted with that country and we visited some spots of historic in- terest. Saw among other things the old house where Whitfield, the great preacher, stood upon a balcony over the front door and preached to a great multitude; saw that same after noon the site of the First Baptist meeting house ever erected in the state of Connecticut. Returning home, we came to the crossroads that are sometimes so confusing, and we took the road that led us about two miles in the wrong direction. That of course meant four miles wrong for we had to retrace our way. It is so easy to be mistaken, especially when someone just knows that this is the right way There are so many cross roads; so many winding paths; so many sign boards that are twisted un- til they point in the opposite direc- tion from the way they were intended to point.
 One day the disciples. all confused frHo tn l,t. strengthened out so they could under stand them, were expressing their sense of unrest and uncertainty, whereupon Jesus said: am the way. I have chosen those words this morn ing because there are so many differ ent paths in these days.
 It seems to me people used to be much more certain as to their relig- ious experience. People used to be more positive than they are now. There were not so many cross roads and roads that fork to the left and to the right.
 One night this summer I was fol- lowing an old path through the woods "a path that I had been perfectly familiar with in other years. The night was inky black but my feet fol- lowed safely in the old trail until bz and by an obstacle threw me tenn porarily out of the path and it was several minutes before I could get back into the trail. Stepping out of the way, even for moment, is risky thing. Some years ago I spent half a day trying to get back into a familiar path from which I had care lessly strayed, thinking I could easily return.
 There are a good many people who have temporarily lost their way Some have permanently lost it. Others have never found it.
 Jesus is the way because He is life's true direction. He settles all ques- tions and resolves all doubts. He is like the day after the storm when the mists and the humid vapors have been dispelled by the winds that come out of the north and we breathe again with a sense of new life.
 Jesus is the way because He is the only true direction of life He is the magnetic pole towards which every noble impulse swings. He is the sun in the spiritual system by which all the surrounding planets are sustain ed. Take the sun out of our solar system and chaos would result. Take Jesus out of the Bihle and ont of ol,r