Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1888-12-22

pressed 70 His lips, until the acrid,
nauseating, bitter draught was swallowed
with distorted countenance, and shudder
from head to foot, and a gurgling strangula-
ton. Aloesl Alossl Nothing but aloes.
All this for Hinlsefl All this to get the
fame In the world OF being martyrf All
this in the spirit OF stubboTnness, because he
did not like Crsart Mol mol All this because
He wanted to pluck you and me from hell
Because He wanted to raise you and me TO
Heaven Because we were lost and de
wanted us found Because we were blind
and He wanted us to see. Because NE were
serfs and He wanted US manumitted Oh, We
In whose cup of life the saccharine has pre-
dominated; oh. we who have had bright and
sparkling beverages. how do you feel toward
him who IN your stead, and to purchase
your observation-disclosures, took the aloes, the UNI
savory aloes, the bitter aloesl
Your third curiosity is TO know why these
garments Of Christ are odor0us with cassia.
This was a plant that grew in India and the
adjoining islands. You do not care to hear
what kind Of flower it had or what kind of
a 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
garments that smell of cassia, it suggests TO
me the healing and curative power of the
Son of God. Oh you say, NOW you have
a superIiuous idea We are not SICK Why
do we want cassial 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.r 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 ex-
ahmed all the best authorities on the sub
Toaf and has to toll hat
you are full of wounds and bruises and
putrefying sores which have not been bound
up, or Modified with ointment. The maras-
mus of sin is OH us-the palsy, the dropsy, the
leprosy. The man that is expiring tonight
on Fulton street.-the alopathic and homoeo-
pathic 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 l are dying unless we
have taken the medicine from Gods apothe-
cary. All the leaves of this Bible are
only so many prescriptions from the Di-
vine Physician, written, not in Latin, like the
prescriptions of earthly physicians, but writ
ten in plain English. so that a man, though
fool. need not err therein. Thank God that
the Saviour's garments smell of cassia-
Suppose man were sick, and there was
phial on his mante piece with medicine he
knew would cure him, and he refused to take
it, what would You say of him. He is a
who. sick in sin, has the healing medicine of
Gods grace offered him, and refuses to take
it. If 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 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-
Pile were accustomei to throw stones upon
his grave So it seems to me there may lie
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 a 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 | see a mother holding up her
little child and saying: "Cure this Group, Lord
Jesus. Cure this scarlet fever" And others
saying: Cure this ophthalmia. Give ease and
rest to this spinal distress. Straighten this
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 hat
we can come now with all our wounds of soul
and get His benediction. Jesus, here we
are We want healing We want sight,
We want health. We want life. The
whole need not a physician, but they that
are sick. Blessed be God that Jesus Christ
comes through this assemblage now, His
garments smelling of myrrhn-that means
fragrance land aloes"-they mean bitter
sacrificial 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, and
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 Silyery music
ripping to the beach of the arches. The
mere thought of it almost stuns my brain,
and you say:
''Oh, il could only have walked over such
HOOfSi II cOulu nave thrown myself III
such chair IL could have heard the drip
and dash Of those fountainsln You shall
have something better than that if you
only let Christ Introduce you From that
place He came, and to that place He proposes
70 transport you. for His garments smell
Of myrrh, and aloes and cassla, out OF the
ivory palaces
Oh. what place heaven must bel The
Tuileries of the French, the Windsor Castle
Of the English, the Spanish ALEXANDRIA, the
Russian kremlin are dungeons compared with
i'll Not so many castles on either side the
Rhine as on both sides Of the river Of God the
ivory palacesl One for the angels insuffer-
ably bright, winged fire-eyed, tempest
charioted; one FOR the martyrs, with blood
red robes, from under the altar: ono 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 ransomed from sin;
one for me, plucked from the burning. Oh,
the ivory paiacesl
To-day itseeins to me as IL the windows of
those palaces were iliumined for some great
victory. and ] look and see climbing the
stairs Of ivory, and walking on floors IT
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-tw years AMI seven
ty nine years. as when they left us, but
blithe and young as when on their marriage
day. And there are brothers and sisters. mer-
rior than whom tVo mead 10 rof,ar. afrr.aa fho