The weekly sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1886-1887, 1886-10-28

In His presence, and licked his feet He
knew all the waves and the wind. When he
beckoned, they came. When he frowned,
they fed. The heel of His foot made no in
dentation on the solidifcal 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 a limb is
once dead it is dead. But here is 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 cureda 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 may kill tree, but Jesus smites
one dead with word. Chemistry can do
many wonderful things, but what chemist at
wedding, when the wine gave out, could
change pail of water into cask of winei
What human voice could command school
Of fish, Yet here is voice that marshals
the scaly tribes, until, in place where they
had let down the net and pulled 1t 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
boat; the rain-it hung glitteringly Oh the
thick foliage Of the parallels; the star of
Bethlehem-it sang a Christmas carol over
His birth; the rocks-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
another in There is a knob on the outside
of the door of the sepulchre, but none on the
yr,cS6 Have +to ~
He enters that realm and says: Daughter
Of Jairus, sit up" and she sits up. To Laz-
arus: "Come forth" and he came forth. To
the widows son He said: "Get up from that
bier;r and he goes home with his mother.
Then Jesus snatched up the keys of death and
hung them to His girdle, and cried until all
the graveyards of the earth heard him: 20
death! will be thy plague! o gravel will
be thy destruction!"
No man could go through all the obstacles
I have described, you say. without having
nature adioined that was supernatural. That
arm-amid its muscles, and nerves, and bones
were intertwisted the energies of omnipo-
tence. In the syllables of that voice there was
the emphasis of the eternal God That foot
that walked the deck of the ship in Gennesa-
ret shall stamp kingdoms of darkness into
demolition This poverty struck Christ owned
Augustus, owned the Sonhedrim, owned Tibe-
the skies that looked down into its waters;
owned all the earth and all the heavens. To
Him of the plain coat belonged the robes of
celestial royalty. He who walked the road to
Emmaus-the lightnings were the fire-shod
steeds to His chariot.
Yet there are those who look on and see
Christ turn water into wine, and they say:
Sleight of hand And they see Christ raise
the dead to life, and they say: Easily ex-
planned; not really dead; playing dead. And
they see Christ giving sight to the blind man,
and they say: Clairvoyant doctor OH
what shall they do on the day when Christ
rises up in judgment, and the hills shall rock
and the trumpets shall call, peal on peals
In the time of Theodosius the Great there
was great assault made upon the divinity
of Jesus Christ, and during that time Theo-
dosius the Great called his own son to sit on
the throne with him, and be a copartner in
the government Of the empire; and one day
the old bishop came and bowed down before
Theodosius the emperor, and passed out Of the
room, and the emperor was offended, saying
to the old bishop: "Why didn't you pay the
same honor to my son, who shares with mo
in the governments" Then the old bishop
turned to the young man and said: 1.-THE
Lord bless thee, my young man. but still
paid him no such honor as he had paid to the
emperor And the emperor was still offended
to Theodosius the Great and said to him:
sYou are offended with me because 1 don't
pay the same honor to your son, whom you
have made copartner in the government of
this empire, the same honor pay to you, and
yet you encourage multitudes of people in
your realm to deny the Son of God equal
authority, equal power with God the Father. !"
My subject also treasures US of the fact
that in all our struggles we have a sympa-
ta11 iof
about hardship. 1 do not think that wide
| ages of eternity will take the scars from his
punctured side, and his lacerated temples,
| and his sore hands. You will never have a
| burden weighing so many pounds that
| burden Christ carried up the bloody hill.
| You will never have any suffering worse than
| He endured when, with tongue hot, and
| cracked, and infamed, and swollen, He
| moaned: Il thirst You will never be sur
rounded by worse hostility than that which
| stood around Christ's feet, foaming, reviling,
| ivid with rage, bowling down His prayers
and snuffing up the smell of blood Oh. ye
faint hearted, oh! we troubled, !oh! ye perse-
| cuted one, here is a heart than can sympathize
with you!
Again, and lastly, learn from all that has
| been said this morning, that Christ was
awfully in earnest. If it had not been mo-
mentous mission he would have turned back
from IL olSSuSUeo ana dlscouraSeu ne Sa"
| you in captivity from which he was re-
solved to extricate you, though it cost him
| all sweat, all tears, all blood. He came q
| great way to save you. He came from Beth
| lehem here, through the place Of skulls
| through the charnel house, through Danish
| ment. There was not among all the ranks OF
| celestials one being who would do as much
for you. I lay his crushed heart at your fee
| to-day.
| Let it not be told in heaven that you de
liberately put your foot on it. While it will
take all the ages of eternity to celebrat.
Christ's triumph, I am here to make the start
| ling announcement that because of the re
| lection Of this mission on the part of some O
you, all that magnificent work of garden
and cross, and grave is, SO far as you ar
| concerned, failure. Helena, the EN-
| press, went to the Holy Land to fine
| ~