The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1883-11-03

| be educated; when man on Sabbath
night goes home with all his nervous
energy wrung out by active Christian
service in church or Sabbath-schOOl or
highway eVangeliZ alton when a mother
loses sleep in attending the sick cradle;
when a wife bears up under domestic
privatiOn that she may encourage her
husband in his struggle against mistOr-
tune; when a woman by hard suffering
and good advice gently given, and per-
petual prayer and her whole life direct
ing her family for God and usefulness
and heaven, and has nothing to show
for 1t but premature gray hair and pro-
fusion of wrinkles, she is like Christ in
that strength has gone out of her.
Yea, 1t may go on out through
the tip of some garment that you make
for your own household, or through
some sock knit for the barefoot poor, or
through some mantle hung up after you
are dead SO crippled girl sat on her
fathers front steps every morning, that
when Christian teacher went past to
school, she, the little invalid, might let
the teachers dress slide through her
fingers. She said 1t helped her to be
patient all day. Aye, are there not in
all our households garments of departed
through and through, the life of those
who are gone thrilling into the life of
those of us who are here?
Our subject presents us Christ as SEN
sitiVe to the touch of human distress.
We study God on so vast scale that we
don't realize His apprOachableness. God
in magnitude rather than God in the
minute. God in the infinite rather than
in the infinitesimal. But Ill my text we
have God arrested by touch. At the
sham trial of Christ they struck him in
Co. aHnp.s Il h. 4 IIn
could feel that tingling blow. At His
scOuTging reed smOte shoulders and
back, and we can understand how He
could have writhed under the laceTa-
tiOn. But this invalid of the text only
puts the tip of her finger on the fringe
of His coat and Christ, under the con-
tact, cries out: "WhO touched mew We
talk about sensitive people, but the i'm
peTsOnatiOn of all sensitiVeness was
Christ. The slightest touch of the small
est finger of human disability sets all
His nerves of brain, and heart, and head,
and hand, and foot vibrating. 1t is not
a stOlid Christ, not phlegmatic Christ,
not a preOccupied Christ, not hard
Christ. not an iron cased Christ, but an
exquisitely sensitive Christ my text un-
wells. All the things that touch us
touch Him if in prayer we make the
communicating line complete. But
mark you, that invalid might have
walked around the crowd all day carry
ing her suffeIings and crying about
how bad she felt and no relief would
have come had she not touched Him.
When you pray you put your hand upon
all the sympathies of an ardent, glow
ing, responsive Christ. You know that
in telegraphy there are two currens of
electricity, and | have to tell you that
through the arm of your prayer there
are two currents, the one current of your
SORROWS rolling from your heart into
the heart of Christ, and the other cur
rent the cOmmisseratiOn rolling from
Christ's heart into your heart. Why go
about unhelped of your troubles and
wondering about this and wondering
about that; why do you not touch Himp
Are you sickP 1 warrant you are no
more sick than the invalid of the text.
Have you had a most prOtracted strug-
glep | guess it has not been longer
than twelve years. Is your case hope
less? SO is the one of which the text
takes diagnosis. Are there so many
things standing between you and Christi
There was a whole mob between this
woman and the Lord. She pressed
through, and l think you can press
through.
Is it home trOubleP Christ can un-
derstand that, for he has shown himself
especially interested in all questions of
dOmesticity. Witness his alleviatiOn at
the wedding in Cana of hOusekeeper's
predicament, and how he could not keep
back the tears at the broken home of
Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Many men
are ashamed to weep, and the tears start
ing, they try to hide them, lest they ap-
pear as evidence of weakness. But
Christ was not ashamed to cry over hu
s,FN DnhAIH fhof 10 IN
of tears in two words of the evangelist
Jesus weptP' Behold Him on the
only day of earthly triumph He ever ex-
perienced as he marches on to the City
of Jerusalem. All the glittering towers
Obliterated from his eyes in blind
ing rain of tears when he "beheld the
city and wept over it." o man
of the many hardshipsl o woman of
the many heart-breaksl why don't
you touch himp You say: "He
will not care for me. He has so
are all the the affairs of his Celestial
Government to manage. There are all
the powers of sin to be demolished.
There are worse troubles than mine to
employ his attention. He is looking
the other way" But so he has his back
turned to the invalid of the text and he
was on the way to restore the dying
child of great man an 1t would be a
resOunding Ond popular cure. But the
Bible says He turned Him about" If
he were facing toward the north He
turned toward the south. If He were
facing toward the east He turned to-
ward the west. What made Him turnP
We are told that He is without shadow
of turning. His chariot rolls straight
on through the eternities. He marches
right on crushing sceptres as though
they were the cracking elders on the
brooks bank, and tossing aside thrones
without looking to see which way they
fell. From everlasting to everlasting.
What then shall turn Him2 A poor
sufferers touch. Mark v. 30: "He turn
ed him about"
He whom all the mighty armies of
hell cannot stop an instant or divert an
inch, by the pale, sick, nervless finger of
human helplessness turned about.
Great encouragement here for people
who in common parlance are called
nervous. After the invalid had suffer
ed twelve years there must have been a
nervous temperament absolutely appal-
ling. We all know that if a great
amount of medicine does not cure 1t
leaves the system exhausted. The BIZ
BILE saysin so many words: "She had
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