The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1886-10-28

cllss great questions of metaphysics or ethics
or politics, or government you would not be
more contemptuous than these graybeardec
scribes In the presence OF this young Christ.
Popular opinion declared in those days
BLESSED is the merchant who has castle
! down on the banks of Lake Tiberias.n This
young man said, BLESSED are the poor Popu-
lar opinion said in those days, blessed are
those who live amid statuary, and fountains,
and gardens, and congratulations and all
kinds of festivity." This young man responded
BLESSED are they that mourn" Public opin-
ion in those days said, BLESSED is the Roman
eagle, the flap of whose wings startles nations,
and the plunge of whose iron beak infiicts
cruelty upon its enemies" This young man
responded, BLESSED are the merciful" Popu-
lar opinion said, Gan eye for an eye, tooth
for a tooth" In other words, if a man knocks
your eye out, knock his out If man breaks
your tooth, break his. Retort for retort; sar-
casm for sarcasm; irony for irony; persecu-
ton for persecution: wound for wound Christ
said: spray for them that despitefully use
YOU
They looked at his eye, it was like any
other mans eye, except perhaps more speak
ing. They felt his hand, made of bone and
muscle and nerves and flesh, Just like any
other hand Yet what bold treatment of sub
jects, what supernatural demands, what
strange doctrinel They felt the solid earth
under them, and yet Christ said: "I bear up
the pillars of this world" They looked at the
moon, he said: 81 will turn it into blood"
They looked at the sea, he said al viii hush
it." They looked at the stars, he said: II viii
shake them down like untimely figs" Did
ever one so young say things SO bold! 1t was
all against Him.
After the battle Of Antietam, when a gen
eral rode along the lines, although the soldiers
were lying down exhausted, they rose with
great enthusiasm and huzzaed. As Napoleon
returned from his captivity, his first step on
the wharf shook all the kingdoms, and two
hundred and fifty thousand men focked to
his standard. 1t took three thousand troops
to watch him in his exile. So there have been
men of wonderful magnetism of person But
hear me when tell you of poor young man
who came up from Nazareth to produce a
thrill which has never been excited by anv
other, Napoleon had around him the MEM
ories of Mal'engo, and Austerlitz, and Jena:
but here was man who had fought no bat
ties, who wore no epaulettes, who brandished
no sword. He had, probably, never seen
prince, or shaken hands with a nobleman
l imagine Christ one day standing in the
streets of Jerusalem. A man descended from
high lineage is standing beside Him and saws:
"My father was merchant prince he had a
castle on the beach in Galilee Who was
your father!" Christ answers: Joseph, the
carpenter A man from Athens is stand
ing there unrolling his parchment of gradua-
ton and says to Christ: "Where did you 90
to schoolp Christ answers: II never gradu-
ated." Ahal the idea of such an unheralded
young man attempting to command the at
tention of the worldl As well some little fish
ing village on Long Island shore attempt to
arraign New York, Yet no sooner does He
set His foot in the towns or cities of Judea
than everything is in commotion The
people go out on a picnic, taking
only food enough for day, yet are so
fascinated with Christ that, at the
risk of starving, they follow Him out into
the wilderness. A nobleman falls down fiat
before him and says: "My daughter is dead"
A beggar tries to rub the dimness from his
eyes, and says: Lord, that my eyes may be
opened" A poor, sick, painting woman |
presses through the crowd and says: II must |
touch the hem of His garment" Children !
who love their mother better than any one |
else struggle to get into His arms, and to kiss |
His cheek, and to run their fingers through |
His hair, and for all time putting Jesus so in |
love with the little ones that there is hardly |
a nursery In ChFistendom from which He |
does not take one, saying: II must have them. |
/ will fill heaven with these; for every cedar
that plant il heaven / viii have fifty white |
lilies. In the hour when was a poor man
in Judea they were not ashamed of me, and |
now that have come to a throne 1 do not /
despiSe them. Hold it not back, o weeping
Iaother Lay it on my warm heart. OF
such Is the kingdom of heaven"
Again, l remark, there was no organiza-
ton in His behalf, and that was against Him
When men propose any great work they band
together, they write letters of agreement, they
take oaths of fealty; and the more and COM
plete the organization the more and complete
fI,a Harp 1Ot J,
WITHOUT any organization and alone. If men
bad mind to Join in His company all right;
if they had mind not TO Join in His COM
pany all we'll If they came they were
greeted with no loud salutation; if they
went away they were sent with no bitter
enathema- Peter departed, and Christ turned
and looked at him. That was ALL
All this was against Him. Did any one
ever undertake such an enterprise amidst
such infinite embarrassments and by such
modest And yet am here to say it ended in
q complete triumph. Notwithstanding His
worldly occupation, His poverty, His plain
face, lbs unpretending gqFb, the fact that He
was schoolless, the fact that He had brief
life, the fact that He was not accompanied
by any visible OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
ing ali that, in an exhilaration which shall be
in everlasting cheFalsi Il have fin
ished the work Thou gavest me TO do"
Sec Him victorious over the forces of ma
ture The sea is 9 crystal sepulchre. 1t swal-
lowed the Central America, the President,
the Spanish armada as easily as any fly that
ever fioated on It. The inland lakes are fully
as terrible in their wrath. Recent travellers
tell US that Galilee, when aroused in a storm,
d overwhelming; and yet that sea crouche9
In His presence, and licked his feet. He
knew all the waves and the wind. When he
ho ft.rxr cd I
they fed. The heel of His foot made no in
dentation on the solidifical water. Medical
science has wrought great changes in rheu-
matte limbs and diseased blood, but when the
muscles are entirely withered, no human
power can restore them and when limb is ,,
once dead it is dead But here is a paralytic
his hand Ifeless. Christ says to him:
"Stretch forth thy hand" and he stretches it
forth.
In the eye infirmary, how many diseases of
that delicate organ have been cureds But {
Jesus says to one blind: "Be open," and the
light of heaven rushes through gates that !
have never before been opened. The frost
or an ak may kill tree, but Jesus smites 6
one dead with word. Chemistry do /
many wonderful things, but what chemist at j
a wedding, when the wine gave out, could 9
change a pail of water into a cask of wine?
What human voice could command school
Of fish? Yet here is voice that maTshals :
the scaly tribes, until, in a place where they
had let DOM the net and pulled it up with no :
fish in It, they let it down again, and the dis
ciples lay hold and begin to pull, when, by
reason of the multitude of fish, the net broke.
Nature is His servant. The howers-He
twisted them into His sermons; the winds !
they were His lullaby when He slept in the :
boat; the rain-it hung glitteringly on the
thick foliage of the parallels; the star of :
sang a Christmas carol over
His birth; the Focks-they beat dirge at His :
death.
Behold His victory over the gravel. The
hinges of the family vault become very rusty, .
because they are never opened except to take I
another in. There is knob on the outside
Of the door of the sepulchre, but none on tho
inside. Here comes the conquerpr of death
He enters that realm and says: Daughter
Of Jairus, sit up" and she sits up. To Lag
arus: @Come forth, and he came forth. To Z
.he widows SON He said: sect up from that :
oier;D and he goes home with his mother. +
Of