Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-11-03

of that delicate organ have been cured? Blu
Jesus says to one blind, "Be open," and tn
light of heaven rushes through gates tina
have never before been opened. The fros
or an axe may kill tree, but Jesu
smites one dead with a word. Chemistry
can do many wonderful things, but wha
chemist, at a wedding, when the wine gavt
out, could change pail of water into easl
of wine?
/ What human voice could command 9
school of fish? Yet here is voice that
marshsls the scaly tribes, until in place
where they had let down the net and pull
ed it up with no fish in it, they let it down
again, and the disciples lay hold and begin
to pull, when, by reason of the multitude
of fish, the net broke.
Nature is His servant. The fowers-he
twisted them into his sermons; the winds
they were His lullaby, when He slept in
the boat; the rain-it hung glitteripgly on
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 grave! The
hinges of the family vault become very
rusty because they are never opened except
to take another in. There is knob on
| the outside. Here comes the Conqueror of
Death. He enters that realm and says:
Daughter of Jairus. sit up" and she sits
up. To Lazarus: "Come FORTH" aad he
came forth. To the widows son he said:
"Get up from that BIER" 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: 80 Death! will be
thy plague; o Grave! will be thy destruc-
tion!''
No man could 60 through all the obstacles
l have described, you say, without having
nature adjoined that was supernatural
That armand it's muscles and nerves
aud bones were intertwisted the energies
of omnipotence. In the syllables of that
voice there was the emphasis of the eternal
God. That foot that walked the deck of
the ship in Gennesaret shall stamp king
doms of darkness into demolition. This
poverty struck Christ owned Augustus,
owned the Sanhedrim, owned Tiberias,
owned all the castles on its beach, and all
the skies that looked down into its water;
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
| uIc-buOu SG66QS To LIS CQarlOC.
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.
Aud they see Christ giving sight to the
blind man, and they say: Clairvoyant doc
tor. 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 peal?
In the time of Theodosius the Great there
was great assault made upon the divinity
OF Jesus Christ, and during that time
Theodosius the Great called his own son to
sit on the throne with him and be copart-
ner 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 me in the govern
ment?' Then the old bishop turned to the
young man and said: "The Lord bless
thee, my young man. but still paid him
no such honor as he had paid to the emper-
or. And the emperor was still offended
and displeased, when the old bishop turned
to Theodosius the Great and said to him;
You are offended with me because I don't
pay the to your SOD, whom you
nave made corpartner in the government of
this empire, the same honor 1 pay to you,
and yet you encourage multitudes fpeople
in your realm to deny ths Son of God equal
authority, equal power, with God the Fa-
ther."
My subject also reassures us of the fact
that in all our struggles we have a sympa-
thlser. Yon cannot tell Christ anything
new about hardship. 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 burden weighing so many
pounds as that burden Christ carried up
the hill. You will never have any suffering
worse than He endured, when, with tongue
hot and cracked and infamed and swollen,
He moaned, 81 thirstp' You will never
be surrounded by worse hostility than that
which stood around Christ's feet, foaming,
reviling, livid with rage, bowling down His
prayers, and sDufing up the smell of blood.
Oh! ye faint hearted; oh! ye troubled; oh!
ye prosecuted one, here is a heart that can
sympatbise with you.
Again, and lastly, l learn from all that
has been said this morning that Christ was
awfully in earnest. If it had not been a
momentous mission, He would have turned
back from it disgusted and discouraged. He
saw you in a captivity from which He was
resolved to extricate you, though it cost
Him all sweat, all tears, all blood. He came
great way to save you. He came from
bethlehem here, through the place of skulls,
through the charnel-house, through banish-
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 feet 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 celebrate
Christ's triumph, am here to make the
startling announcement that because of the
rejection of this mission on the part of some
of you, all that magnificent work of gar
den, and cross, and grave is, so far as you
are concerned, failure. Helena, the en-
press, went to the Holy Land to find the
cross of Christ. Getting to the Holy Land
there were three crosses excavated, and the
question was which of the three crosses was
Christ's cross. They took dead body, ira
dition says, and put it upon one of the
crosses, and there was no life; and they teok
the dead body and put it upon another
cross and there was no life. But tradition
says when the dead body was put against
the third cross, it sprang into life. The
dead man lived again. Oh, that the life
giving power of the Son of God might~dart
your dead soul into an eternal life, begin
ming this day! "Awake thou that sleepest
and rise from the dead, and Christ shall
give thee life!''
CreamerieS.
| By Our Agricultural Editor.