The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-06-05

AseSatloh atthe tabernacle sang this morning:
I'D sing the precious blood He split
Ny ransom from the dreadful guilt"
This Is sacramental day, and large number
Of persons joined the church, making the COM
runicant membership four thousand, one hun.
dred and ninety-four. But this is only mart
OF the great attendance that Sunday mornings
and evenings overflow the immense audience
room. The Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage. DID.
took for his text the passage; whatsoever
doth not bear his cross, and come after Me.
cannot be My disciple" Luke, 18th chapter,
9th verse. He preached the following sermon:
The cross was gibbet on which criminals
were put to death. 1t was sometimes made in
the shape of the letter T, sometimes in the
shape of the letter X, sometimes in the shape
Of the letter Ia, simple upright; sometimes
two cross pieces against the perpendicular bar.
Q that upon the lower cross piece the criminal
partially sat- But, whatever the style of
cross, it was always disgraceful and always
agonizing.
When Darius conquered Babylon, he put
two hundred captives to death on the cross.
When Alexander conquered Tyre he put two
thousand captives to death on the cross So it
was just an ordinary mode of punishment.
But in all the forest of crosses on the hills and
In the valleys of the earth, there is one cross
that attracts more attention than any
other. 1t is not higher than the others, it
Is not made out of different wood, there
Is nothing peculiar in this notch at which the
two pieces are joined, and rs to the scene, they
witnessed crucifXions every few weeks, so
that see a reckless man walking about the
hill and kicking carelessly aside a skull. and
wondering who the villain was that had so fiat
and misshapen a head and here is another
skull, and there on the hillside is another
skull. Indeed. the Bible says it was "a place
OF skulls" But about the victim on one OF
these crosses all ages are crying: "Who is he?
Was He a man? Was He God? Was He
man and God?"
Through the darkness of that gloomy day, I
come close up enough to the cross to see who it
Is. 1t is Jesus. How did he come there?
Had he come up on the top of the hill to look
brilliant sunset? No. He came there i'll and
exhausted. People sometimes wonder why
Christ expired so quickly on the cross, in six
or seven hours, while other victims have been
on the cross for forty-eight hours before life
was extinct. will tell you the reason. He
was exhausted when he came there. He had
been scourged. We are Mortified at the
cruelties of the whipping post, but those
cruelties were mercy as compared with the
scourging of Jesus Christ.
I saw at Antwerp picture made by Ru-
bens-Rubens's picture of the scourging of
Jesus Christ. 1t was the most overmastering
picture l ever looked at or ever expect to see.
As the long-frocked official opened the door
that hid the picture, there He was-Christ
with back bent and barred The flagellator
stood with the upper teeth clenched over the
lower lip, as though to give violence to the
blows. There were the swollen shoulders of
Christ. There were the black and blue
ridges, denied even the relief of bleeding.
There was the flesh adhering to the whips as
they were lifted. There were the marks
where the knots in the whips gouged out the
flesh. There stood the prosecutor, with his
foot on the calf of the leg of the Savior, bal
look ON those faces, grinning vengeance
against the Son of God. The picture seized
me; it overwhelmed me; it seemed as if it
would kill me. l do not think / could have
looked at it five minutes and have lived
But that, my friends, was before Christ had
started for Calvary. That was only the whip
ping. Are you ready for your journey to the
cross?
The carpenters have split the timber into
two pieces. They are heavy and they are long
pieces, for one of them must be fastened deep
down in the earth lest the struggling of the
victim upset the structure. They put this
timber upon the shoulder of Christ very grad
ually, first, to see whether He can stand it,and
after they find He can stand it, they put the
whole weight upon Him. Forward now to Cal
vary. The hooting and the yelling mob follow
on. Under the weight of the cross, Christ be-
ing weary and sick, He stumbles and falls, and
they jerk at his robe indignant that he should
have stumbled and fallen, and they cry: "Get
up, get up!' Christ, putting one hand on the
ground and the other hand on the cross, rises,
looking into the face of Mary, his mother, for
sympathy; but they tell her to stand back, it
Is no place for woman-"Stand back and
stop this crying"
Christ moves on with his burden upon his
shoulders, and there is boy that passes along
with him, a boy holding mallet and a few
nails. l wonder what they are for. Christ
moves on until the burden is so great he stag
gers and falls fiat into the dust and faints dead
away, and q ruffian puts his foot on him and
shakes him as he would dead dog, while an
other ruflian looks down at him wondering
whether he has tainted away, or whether he is
only pretending to faint away, and with jeer
and contempt understandable says: "FaInted
away have you? tainted! get up, get on!
Now, they have arrived at the foot of the
hill Off with his clothes. Shall that loath-
some mob look upon the unrobed body of
Christ? Yes. The commanding officers say:
"Unfasten the girdle, take off the coat, strip
Him" The work is done. But bring back
the coat, for here are the gamblers tossing up
coin on the ground, saying: who shall have
the coat?" One ruffian says 81 have it, 1
have tit is mine" He rolls it up and puts
1t under his arm, or he examines it to see
what fabric it is made of. Then they put the
cross upon the ground, and they stretch Christ
upon it, and four or five men hold Him down
while they drive the spikes home, at every
thump groan, q groan Alas! Alas the
hour passes on, and the time comes when they
must cruelty Him.
Christ has only one garment left now, a cap
"a cap of thorns. No danger that it will fall
off, for the sharp edges have punctured the
temples and it is sure and fast. One ruffian
takes hold of one end of the short beam of
the cross and another ruffian takes hold of the
other end of the short beam of the cross, and
another ruffian puts his arms around the waist
OF Christ and another rutfian takes hold of the
end of the long beam of the cross, and alto
gether they move on until they come to the
hole digged in the earth, and with an awful
plunge it jars down with its burden of woe.
It is not the picture of a Christ, it is not the
statue of Christ, as you sometimes see in
cathedral, but it is the body of a bleeding, liv-
ing, dying Christ.
They sometimes say He had five wounds,
but they have counted wrong. Two wounds
Tor the hands, two wounds for the feet one
wound for the side, they say, five wounds. No,
they have missed the worst and they have
missed the most. Did you ever see the bram-
BILE out OF which that crown of thorns was
made? / saw one on Brooklyn ferryboat, in
the hands of gentleman who had just re-
turned from Palestine, q bramble just like
that out of which the crown of thorns was
made OIL how cruel and how stubborn were
the thorns. And when that cap of thorns was
put upon Christ, and it was pressed down upon
Him not five wounds, out ten, twenty, thirty
Il cannot count them.
There were three or four abseneAA that made