St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1885-11-07

What an OK alting principle this which
leads one to suffer for another. Nothing
80 kindIes enthusiasm, or awakens elo.
ouence, or chimes poetic canto, or moves
nations. That principle is the dominant
one in our religion-Christ the martyr,
Christ the celestial hero, Christ the de.
fender, Christ the substitute. No new
principle, for it was as old as human ma
ture. but now on grander, wider, higher,
deeper and more Notwithstanding scales
The shepherd boy, as champion for Israeli
with sling toppled the giant Of Philis-
tine braggadocio in the dust, but here is
another David, who, for all the armies
of churches, militant and triumphant,
hurls the Goliath Of hell into de-
feat, the crash of his brazen arnor like
an explosion at He'll Gate. Abraham
had, at Gods command, agreed to sacri-
fee his son Isaac, and the same God,
lust in lime, had provided ram of the
thicket as a substitute; but here is an
other Isaac, bound to the altar, and no
hand arrests the sharp edges Of lacera.
ton and death, and the universe shivers
and uuakes and recoils and groans at
the horror. All good men have for CEN
turtles been trying to tell what this sub
stitute was like, and every COMPARE.
son, inspired and uninspired, evangelis"
tic, prophetic, apostolic and human, falls
short, for Christ was the great unlike.
Adam type of Christ, because he came
directly from God; Noah type of Christi
because he delivered his own family from
deluge; Melchisedeck type of Christ,
4. L.. y,IO
cessor; Joseph type of Chris, because
he was put to death by his brethren;
Moses type Of Christ, because he was
deliverer from bondage; Joshua type OF
Christ, because he was a conquerer; Sam.
son a type of Christ. because Of
his strength to slay the lions
and carry off the iron gates
of impossibility; Solomon type
of Christ, in the fullness Of his dominion;
Jonah type of Christ, because of the
stormy sea in which he threw himself for
the rescue of others; but put together
Adam and Noah and Melchisedeck and 10.
seph and Moses and Joshua and Sampson
and Solomon and Jonah, and they would
not make fragment of Christ, quar-
ter Of Christ, the half of a Christ, or the
millionth part of Christ. He forsook q
throne and sat down on his own footstool.
He came from the top of glory to the bot.
tom of humil iation, and changed a circum-
ference seraphic for circumference dia-
bolic. Once waited on by angels, now
Kissed at by brigands. From afar and
high up, he came down; apast meteors,
swifter than they; by starry thrones, him.
self more lustrous; past larger worlds to
smaller worlds, down stairs OF hrma"
ments, and from cloud to cloud, and
through the treetops and into the camsPs
stall. To thrust his shoulder under our
burdens and take the lances of pain
through his vitals, he wrapped himself in
all thesagonies which we deserve for our
misdoings, and stood on the splitting
decks Of wrecking ship, amid the
drenching surf Of the sea, and
passed midnights on the mountains amid
wild beasts OF Frey, and stood at the point
where all earthly and internal hostilities
charged on him at once, with their Keen
sabers-our substitute.
When did attorney ever endure so much
for pauper client, or physician for the
patient in the lazaretto, or mother for the
child in membranous Group, as Christ for
US, and Christ for you, and Christ for me
Shall any man or woman or child in this
audience who has ever suffered for an
other find it hard to understand this
Christly suffering for US? Shall those
whose sympathies have been wrung in be-
half of theIunfo tunateshave no appreciation
of that one moment, which was lifted out
of all the ages of eternity as most conspic.
uous, when Christ gathered up all the sins
of those to be redeemed under his one arm
and all their sorrows under the other arm
and said: 81 will atone for these under
my right arm and will heal all those under
my left arm. Strike me with all thy gilt
tering shafts. oh, eternal justice. Roll
over with ali thy surges, ye
oceans of sorrowE" And thunderbolts
struck him from above, and the
hurricane after hurricane and cyclone
after cyclone; and then and there, in
presence of heaven and earth and hell
yea, all worlds witnessing, the price, the
bitter price, the transcendent price, the
awful price, the glorious price, the in.
finite price. the eternal price, was paid
that sets us free. That is what Paul MEANS
that is what I mean, that is what all those
who have ever had their hearts changed
mean by "blood." glory in this religion
of blood. am thrilled as I see the sug.
gestiys color in the sacramental cup
whether it be of FURNISHED silver on cloth
Immediately white, or rough-hewn from
wood set on table in log-hut meeting
house of the wilderness. Now, / am
thrilled as see the affairs of ancient sac.
rifice crimson with the blood Of the slain
lamb, and Leyiticus is to me not so much
the Old Testament as the New. Now see
why the destroying angel, passing over
Egypt in the night, spared all those houses
that had blood sprinkled on their door.
posts. Now know what Isaiah means