The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-12-19

knew but little about pharmacy, cassia was
used to arrest many forms of disease. So
when in my text we find Christ coming with
garments that smell Of cassia, it suggests to
me the healing and curative power Of the
Son of God. Oh" you say, NOV you ha We
a superhuous idea We are not sick. Why
90 we want cassias 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" 1 beg to differ, my
brother, from you. None Of you can be
better in physical health than am, and yet
must say we are all sick. Ihave taken the
diagnosis Of your case, and have e1-
amlned all the best authorities on the sub
ject 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 mollitied with ointment. The maras-
mus of sin is on us-the palsy, the dropsy, the
leprosy. The man that is expiring tonight
on Fulton street.-The allopathic and homgo-
pathic doctors having given him up, and his
friends now standing aronnd to take his last
words-is no more certainly dying as to his
body than you and I are dying unless we
have taken the medicine from Gods apothe
.ary. All the leaves Of this Bible are
only 50 many prescriptions from the Dl'
vine Physician, written, not in Latin, like the
prescriptions Of earthly physicians, but writ
ten in plain English. so that man, though
fool. need not err therein. Thank God that
the Saviours garments smell of casSia
Suppose a man were sick, and there was
phial on his mantel piece with medicine he
knew would cure him, and he refused to take
it, what would you say Of hima He Is
suicide. And what do you say Of that man
who. sick in sin, has the healing medicine OF
Gods grace offered him, and refuses to take
it2 If he dies he is a suicide. People
talk as though God took q man and led him
b. H. -, Il ,nh
brought him up to the cliffs and then pushed
him off, Oh, no. When a man is lost it is
not because God pushes him off; it is because
he jumps off. In olden times suicide was
buried at tine cross roads, and the peo-
pie were accustomel to throw stones upon
his grave. So it seems to me there may be
i-, this house q man who is destroying his
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, we're brought by their
friends. Here SEQ mother holding up her
little child and saying: "Cure this Group, Lord
Jesus Cure this scarlet fever.n And others
saying: "Cure this ophthalmia. Give ease and
club-foot" Christ made every house where
He stopped 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 benediction. o 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
"earments smelling of myrrh"-that means
rragrance-''and aloes"-they mean bitter
sacrifcial memories" and cassia THAT
means medicine and cure; and according to
my text, He comes 'out Of the ivory
palaces"
You know, or if you do not know will
tell you now, that some OF the palaces OF
olden time were adorned with ivory.
Ahab and Solomon had their homes fur
nished with it The tusks Of African and
Asiatic elephants were twisted into all man
ners of shapes, and there were stairs Of ivory,
and chairs Of ivory, and tables of ivory, and
floors of ivory, and pillars OF ivory ana
windows Of ivory, and fountains that
dropped into basins of ivory, and rooms
that had ceilings Of ivory. Oh, white and
overmastering beauty. Green tree branches
sweeping the white curbs. Tapestry trailing
the snowy floors. Brackets Of light flashing
on the lustrous surroundings Silvery music
rippling to the beach Of the arches. The
mere thought Of it almost stuns my brain,
and you say:
"Oh, If could only have walked over such
floors! If I could have thrown myself in
such chairl If could have heard the drip
and dash Of those fountains!" You shall
have something better than that if you
only lei Christ introduce you. From that
place He came, and to that place He proposes
to transport you, for His garments smell
of myrrh, and aloes, and cassla, out OF the
ivory palaces"
Oh. what a place heaven must bel The
Tuileries Of the French, the Windsor Castle
of the English, the Spanish Alhambra, the
Russian kremlin are dungeons compared with
it'll Not so many castles on either side the
Rhine as on both sides Of the river of God the
ivory palaces! One for the angels, insuffer-
ably bright, winged, fire eyed, tempest
charioted; one for the martyrs, with blood
red robes, from under the altar: one for the
King, the steps OF His palace the crowns of
the church militant; one for the singers, who
lead the one hundred and forty and four
thousand; one for you rauSomed from sin;
one for me, plucked from the burning. Oh,
the ivory palaces!
To-day it seems to me as If the windows Of
those palaces were iliumiRed for some great
victory, anu l look and see climbing the
stairs of ivory, and walking on floors OF
ivory, and looking from the windows OF
ivory, some whom we knew and loved on
earth Yes know them. There are father
and mother, not eighty two years and seven
ty nine years, as when they left us, but
blithe and young rs when on their marriage
day. And there are brothers and sisters, mer-
rier than when we used to romp across the
meadows together The cough gone. The cam
Ger cured. The erysipelas healed. The heart
break over. Oh, how fair they are in the ivory
palaces! And your dear little children that
went out from you-Christ did not let one of
them drop as He lifted them. He did not
wrench one of them from you, No. They
went as from one they loved we'll to Ore whom
they loved better. II should take your
little child and press its soft face
against my rough cheek, I might keep it q
little while: but when you, the mother, came
along, it would struggle to go with YOU. And
80 you stood holding your dying child when
Jesus passed by in the room, and the little
Your Christian dead did not 60 down into
the dust and the gravel and the
mud Though it rained all that funeral day,
| and the water came up to the wheels hub as
you drove out to the cemetery, it made no
difference to them, for they stepped from
the home here to the home there, right into
the ivory palaces. All is we'll with them.
All is we'll
1t is not dead weight that you lift
| when you carry Christian out. Jesus makes
the bed up soft with velvet promises, and
He says: PUT her down here very gently.
Put that head, which will never ache again.
on this pillow Of hallelujahs. Send up word
that the procession is coming. Ring the ellis.
| Ring! Open your gates, We ivory palaces'