The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-12-03

now can my soul be SdVedE Naked (,
frost-bitten, storm-Iashed soul, let Jesus
this hour throw around thee the garments
that smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia
out of the ivory palaces
Your second curiosity is 60 know WHY
the robes of Jesus are odorous with aloes
There is some difference of opinion about
where these aloes grow, what is the color of
the flower, what is the particular appear
ance of the herb. Suffice it for you and me
to know that aloes mean bitterness the
world over and when Christ comes with
garments bearing that particular odor.
they suggest to me the bitterness Of
Saviour's suiferings. Were there ever such
nights as Jesus lived through-nights on
the mountains, nights on the sea, nights in
the deserts Who ever had such hard re-
ception as Jesus hads hostelrv the first,
an unjust trial in oyer and terniner another,
foui-mouthed, yelling mob the last. Was
there space on his back as wide as your
two fingers where he was not whipped Z
Was there space on his brow an inch
square where he was not cut of the briers?
When the spike struck at the instep, did it
not go clear through to the hollow of the
foots Oh, long, deep, bitter pilgrimage.
Aloes Aloes!
John leaned his head on Christ, but who
did Christ lean on. Five thousand men fed
by the Saviour; who fed Jesus. The sym
pathy of Saviour's heart going out to the
leper and the adulteress; but who soothed
Christ! Denied both cradle and death-bed
he had fit place neither to be born nor to
die. A poor babe A poor lad poor
young mani Not so much as a taper to
cheer his dying hours. Even the candle Of
the sun snuffed out. Oh, was it not all alOes3 Z
All our sins, SORROWS bereavements, losses,
and all the agonies of earth and hell picked
up as in one cluster and squeezed into one
cup, and that pressed to his lips,
irrr
draught was swallowed with a
distorted countenance, and shudder from
head to foot, and a gurgling strangulatlon.
Aloes! Aloes! Nothing but aloes. All this
for himself9 All this to get the fame in the
world of being martyrs All this in spirit
of stubbornness, because he did not like
Cesar mol no. All this because he wanted
to pluck you and me from hell. Because he
wanted to raise you and me to heaven. Be
cause we were lost and he wanted us found
Because we were blind and he wanted us to
see. Because we were serfs and he wanted
80 manumitted. Oh, ye in whose cup of
life the saccharine has predomipated; oh,
We who have had bright and sparkling bev-
erages, how do you feel toward him who in
your stead, and to purchase your disen-
thrallment, took the aloes, the unsavory
aloes, the bitter aloes9
Your third curiosity is TO know why
these garments of Christ are odorous with
cassia. This was plant that grew in India
and the adjoining islands. You do not care
to hear what kind of a flower it had or what
kind of stalk. 1t is enough for me to tell
you that it was used incidentally. In that
land and in that age, where they knew but
little about pharmacy, cassia was used to
arrest many forms of disease So when in
my text we find Christ coming with gar
ments that smell of cassia, it suggests to me
the healing and curative power of the Sen
30 N0I at.,o.w l.,
superfiuous idea. We are not sick. Why do
we want cassia2 We are athletic.
Our respiration is perfect. Our limbs are
1.-THE. and in these cool days we feel we
could bound like the roe.n / beg TO differ,
my brother, from you. None of you can
be better in physical health than | am. ana
yet. / must say we are all sick. | have
taken the diagnosis of your case, and have
examined all the best authorities on the
subject, and have come now to tell you
that you are full of wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores which have not been
bound up, or modified with ointment The
marasmus of sin is on us-the palsy, the
dropsy, the leprosy. The man that is ex-
piring tonight ON Fulton street.-The allo-
pathic and homeopathic doctors having
given him up, and his friends now standing
around to take his last words-is no more
certainly dying as to his body, than you
and | are dying, unles we have taken the
medicine from Gods apothecary. All the
leaves of this Bible are only SO many pre-
scriptions from the divine physician written,
not in Latin, like the prescriptions of
earthly physicians, but written in plain
English, SO that man, though fool, need
not err therein. Thank God that the Saw
tours garments smell of cassa.
Suppose man were sick, and there was
phial on his mantelpiece with medicine he
knew would cure him. and he refused to
take it, what would you say of him? He is
suicide. And what do you say OF that
mau who, sick in sin, has the healing medi-
cine of Gods grace offered him, and refuses
to take its Ii he dies he is a suicide. People
talk as though God took man and led him
out to darkness and death, as though he
brought him up to the cliffs and then pushed
him off. Oh, no. When man is lost it is
not because God pushes him off; it is because
he jumps off. In olden times a suicide was
buried at the cross roads, and the people
were accustomed to throw stones upon his
grave. So il seems to me there may be in
this house a man who is destroying his own
soul, and as though the angels of God were
here to bury him at the point where the
roads of life and death cross each other,
throwing upon the grave the broken law
and great pile of misimproved privileges
so that those going may look at the fearful
mound, and learn what suicide it IS when
an immortal soul, for which Jesus died,
puts itself out of the way.
When Christ trod this planet with foot of
flesh, the people rushed after him-people
who were sick, and those who, being so
sick they could not walk, were brought by
their friends. Here l see mother holding
up her little child and saying: "Cure this
Groups Lord Jesus Cure this scarlet
fever,n and Others saying: "Cure this
opthalmia Give ease and rest to this
spinal distress. Straighten this club-foot"
Christ made every house where he stopped
a dispensary. / do not believe that in the
nineteen centuries that have gone by since
his heart has got hard feel that we can
come now with all our wounds of soul and
get his ebenediction. . Jesus, ,here we
are. We want healing. We want sight
We want health We want life. The
whole need not physician, but they that
are sick Blessed be God that Jesus Christ
comes through this assemblage now, his
garments smelling of myrrh"-that
means fragrance "and aloes" they mean
bitter sacrificial memories, land. cassian
that means medicine and cure, and accord
ing to my text, he comes tout of the ivory
palaces"
You know, or if you do not know l will
tell you now, that some Of the palaces Of
olden time were adorned with ivory. Ahab
aud Solomon had their homes furnished
with it, TIE tusks of African and Asiatic
elephants were twisted into all manners of
shapes, and there were stairs Of ivory, and
chairs of ivory and tables of ivory and