The Russellville Democrat., 1888-12-13

A lsdt A poor young man Not 80 much as a taper to cheer His dying hours Even the candle of the sun snuffed out. Oh, vas it not all a1oess All our sins, sorrows, bereavements, losses, and all the agonies of earth and he'll picked up as in one clys- ter and squeezed into one cup, and that pressed to His lips until the acrid, nauseat- ing, bitter draught was swallowed with a distorted countenance, and shudder from head to foot, and a gurgling straugulation. Aloes aloesl nothing but aloes. All this for Himselfs All this to get the fame in the world Of esAeing a martyr: All this in a spirit ef st Morn ness because He did not like Cesar No! no. All this because He wanted to Sck you and me from hell. Because He wa D. ed 10 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 serts and He wanted us manumitted. Oh, ye in whose cup of life the saecharine has pre-
 dominated: oh. ye who have had bright and sparkling beverages, how do you feel toward Him who in your stead, and to purchase your disenthralment, took tho al0es, the unsayory alOes, the bitter aloesy
 Your third curiosity is to know why these garments of Christ are odorous with cassia. This was plant that grew in h. dia and the adjoining islands. You do not care to hear what kind Of flower it had or what kind of a stalk. IL is enough for me to tell you that it was used medicinal ly. In that land and in that age, where they knew little about pharmacy, cassia, was used tQ arrest many forms of disease. So. when in my text we find Christ coming 1f.Fg gests to me the healing and curative power of the Son of God. "Oh," you say, ''now you have a superfuous idea. We are not sick. Why do we want cassia: We are athletic. Our respiration is perfect. Our limbs are 1.-the, and in these cool days we feel that we could bound like the roe" I beg to differ my brsther. from you. None of you can be better in physical health than l am. and yet I must say, we are all sick. have taken the diagnosis of your case. and have examined all the best au- thorities on the subject, and l have come now to tell you that you are full of wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores which 1 have not yet been bound mp, or modified with ointment. The marasInus Of sin is on us-the palsy the dropsy, the leprosy. i The man that is expiring tonight on Full l ton street.-the allopathic and hompo- i pathic doctors having given him up, and 1 his friends now standing around to take ] his last worlds no more certainly dying [ as to his body than you are dying, unless we have taken the medicine from God l apothecary. All the leaves of this Bible are only so many prescriptions from the 1 Divine physician, written, not in Latin, l like the prescriptions of earthly physi- | clans, but written in plain English, SC l that a man, though a fool. may not err ] therein Thank God that the Sayiour's gar ments smell of cassia.
 1 Suppose man were sick, and there was a 1 ph;al on his mantelpiece with medicine he l knew would cure him, and he refused to l take it, what would you say to him? He l is suicide. And what do you say of him 1 who, sick in sin. has the healing medi- ! cine Of Gods grace offered to him, and re. l fuses to take ity If he dies he is suicide 1 People talk as though God took man and l led him out to darkness and death-as though He brought him up to the cliffs l and then pushed him of Oh. no. When i a man is lost it is not because God pushes him of; it is because he jumps sff. II
 the olden times suicide was buried a the crossroads, and the people were ac i crstomed to throw stones upon his grave So it seems to me, there may be in thii house a man who is destroying his OWL
 soul, and as though the angels of GoS
 were here to bury him at the point where
 the roads of life and death cross eacl
 other, throwingupon the grave the broker
 law and a great pile of misapproved priv ilege, so that those going may look at thu
 fearful mound, and learn what suicide
 it is when an immortal soul, for whicl Jesus died, puts itself out of the way.
 When Christ trod this planet with foo
 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, an'
 saying: "Cure this croup, Lord Jesus cure this scarlet fever" And others say ing; "Cure this ophthalmia. Give east and rest to this spinal distress. StraighteI
 this clRb-foot." Christ made every hous'
 where He stopped a dispensary. I do no
 believe that in the nineteen centuries tha
 have gone by since His heart has go hard. feel that we can come now witt l all our wounds of soul and get Hi . benediction. o Jesus, here we are. w
 want healing. We want sight. We want , health. We want life. The whole neel l. not Q physician. but they that are sick . Blessed be God that Jesus Christ come
 through this assemblage now, His "gar nents smelling of myrrh"-that mean fragance-"and aloes'-they mean bite
 sacrifcial memories-.and Cassia''-tha 1 means medicine and cure; and according
 to my text, He comes "out of the iyor, palaces"
 You know, or if you do not know I vii
 tell you now, that some of the paEces o | the olden time were adorned with ivory
 Ahab and Solomon had their homes fur
 nished with it. The tusks of African ant
 Asiatic elephants were twisted into al ' manners of shapes, and there were stair
 of ivory and chairs of ivory and tables O ivory and floors of ivory and pillars O ivory and windows Of ivory, and fountains
 that dropped into basins Of ivory, an'
 rooms that had ceilings of ivory. Oh white and 0vermastering beauty! Greer
 tree branches sweeping the white curbs Tapestry trailing the snowy floors. Brack
 cts 0f light flashing on the lustrOus sur
 roundings. Silyery music ripping to tht
 beach of the arches. The mere though
 of it almost stuns my brain, and you say
 "Oh. if 1 could only have walked ovel
 such floors If I could have thrown my 
 self in such a chair If I could have heard
 the drip and dash of those fountains 2
 You shall have something better thar
 that fl you only let Christ introduce you
 From that place He came, and 10 tha
 place He proposes to transport you, fOi
 His garments smell Of myrrh and aloe
 and cassia out of ivory palaces"
 Oh, what place Heaven must be, Tn
 Tuileries Of the French, the WindsO
 Castle of the English, the spanish AIham
 bra, the Russian Hremlin, dungeons com pared with u Not so many castles oI
 either side the Rhine as on both sides O
 the river Of God, the ivory palaces. Ont for the angels, insufferably bright, wing
 ed, fre-eyed; tempest-oharioted; one to
 the martyrs, with blood-red robes, iron under the altar; one for the King, th !. steps Of His palace, the crowns of tn . church militant; one for the singers, wh lead the one hundred and forty and fou thousand; one for you ransomed iron [ sin. ara f1r me ulurked from fine burn