News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-07-26

as the children romp,d through the house
you put your hand over your aching head.
and said: "Oh. if could only have it still. "
Oh, it is too still now. You lost your
patience when the tops, and the strings and
the shells were left amid floor; but OH you
would be willing to have the trinkets seat
tered all over the floor again, if they were
scattered by the same hands With what a
ruthless ploughshare bereavement rips up the
heart But Jesus knows all about that. You
cannot tell him anything new in regard
to bereavement. He had only few friends,
and when He lost one it brought tears to His
eyes. Lazarus had often entertained Him at
his house. Now Lazarus is dead and buried,
ana christ breaks down with emotioG-the
CONFUSION OF grief shuddering through all
the ages of bereavement. Christ knows what
it is to go throughthe house missing familiar
inmate. Christ knows what it is to see an
unoccup.ed pace at the table. We're there
not four of them-ALary and Martini and
Christ and Lazarus2 Lonely and afflicted
Christ, His great loving eyes filed with
tears, which drop from eye to cheek, and
from cheek to beard aud from beard to
robe, and from robe to floor. Oh, yes yes,
He knows all about the loneliness and the
heartbreak. He took the vinegarl
Then there is the sourness of the death
hour. Whatever else we may escape, that
acid-sponge will be pressed to our lips /
sometimes have curiosity TO know how l
will behave when / come to die Whether l
filed with reminiscence or anticipation.
cannot say. But come to the point
must and you must. In the six thousand
years that have passed, only two persons have
got into the eternal world without death and
do not suppose that God is going to send a
carriage for us with horses of flame, to draw
us up the sleeps of heaven; but l suppose we
will have to go like the preceding genera
tions. An officer from the future world
will knock at the door of our heart and
L.. e
will have to surrender. And we will wake
up after these aItumnal. and wintry, and
vernal, and summery glories have vanished
from our vision-we will wake up into a
realm which has only one season, and
that the season Of everlasting love.
out from my present associations It is
SO chilly and so damp TO 90 down
the stairs of that vault. don't want anMn
thing drawn so tightly over my eyes. IL
through the partition between worlds with
out tearing this body all to shrels [
wonder II the surgeons and the doctors can
not compound mixture by which this body
and soul can all the time be kept to-
seSner g5s senasation there Horo No escape from
none. So l look over this audience today
the vast majority of you seeming in good
health and spirits-and yet realize that in a
short time all of us will be gone-gone from
a
tumble through the gates of the future, as it
were, and we do not know where
they have gone, and they only add
gloom and mystery to the passage:
but Jesus Christ so nightly stoTmei
the gates of that future world. that thew have
never since been closely shut Christ knows
what it is to leave this world, of the beauty
Of which he was more appreciative than we
ever could be- He knows the exquisiteness
OF the phosphoresence of the sea: He trod it,
10 l-Y,r.v ao-1z.. L i
ens for they were the spangled canopy Of
his wilderness pillow. He knows about
the lilies. He twisted them into His sermon.
He knows about the fowls of the air; they
whlrred their way through his discourse.
He knows about the sorrows of leaving this
beautiful world. Not taper was kindled in
the darkness. He died physicianless. He
died in cold sweat, and dizziness and hemor-
rhage, and agony that have put Him in SYM
pathy with all the dying. He goes through
out of all the death pillows, and He puts
them under his own neck and head. He
gathers on His own tongue the burning
thirsts of many generations, The sponge is
soaked in the sorrows of all those who per-
lshed in icy or fiery martyrdom. While
heaven was pitying, and earth was mocking.
and hell was deriding, He took the vinegar!
To all those in this audience to whom life
has been an acerbty-a dose they could not
swallow, a draught that set their teeth on
tent sympathy of Jesus 'Christ. The sister
of Herschel, the astronomer, used to
help him in his work. He got all the
credit; she got none, She used to
spend much of her time polishing the
telescopes through which he brought
the distant worlds nigh, and it is my am
bit!on now, this hour, to Gear the lens Of
your spiritual vision, so that looking through
the dark night of your earthly troubles you
may behold the glorious constellation of a
Saviour's mercy and a Saviours love. o, my
friends, do not try to carry all your ills
alone. Do not put your poor shoulder under
the Apennines when the Almighty Christ is
ready to lift up all your burdens. When you
have a burden of any kind, you rush this
way and that way; and you wonder what
this man will say about it, and what that
man will say about 1t; and you try this pre-
scriptiou, and that pvozs.rit,ttsr. uuh the
sriElit liaiE f tii e r. r. Why DO y9i nHt e
for our own SHINING and suffering race, Ho
There was a vessel that had been tossed on
the seas for a great many weeks, aud been
disabled, and the supply of water gave out,
and the crew were dying Of thirst. After
many days, they saw sail against the sky.
They signaled it, When the vessel came
nearer the people on the suffering ship cried
to the captain of the other vessel: send
US some water. We are dying for lack of
water" And the captain on the vessel that
was hailed responded: Dip your buckets
where YOU are You are in the mouth OF the
Amazon, and there are scores of miles of fresh
water all around about you, and hundreds
of feet Deep And then they dropped their
buckets over the side of the vessel, ana
brought up the clear, bright fresh water,
aud put out the fire of their thirst SO hail
you to-day, after long and perilous voyage,
thirsting as you are for pardon,
and thirsting for comfort, and thirsting
for eternal life; and ask you what is the use
Of your going in that death-struck state,
while all around you is the deep, clear, wide,
sparkling flood of Gods sympathetic mercy.
D, dip your buckets and drink and live for
ever "Whosoever will, let him come and
take of the water of life freely
Yet my utterance is almost Choked at the
thought that there are people here who will
-efuse this divine sympathy; and they viii
nv to fight their own battles, and drink
their own vinegar, and carry their own
burdens; and their life, instead of being
, triumphal march from victory 10 victory
will he n hobbling-on from defeat to dcIeaV,
until they make final surrender to retrloutlVe
disaster o, wish | could to-day gatner up
NV arms all the woes of men ana women.
nlI their heart-aches-all their d!sappolIV-
their chagrlns-anu Jus, -,
them right to the feet of sympalhlHlnE
jesus he took the vinegar.
Mana Sahih after he had lost his last bat-
tle in India, fell back into the lungleS OF lheI,
so full of malaria that no mortar
can live there. He carried with HIM also
value. He died i'll those ,Junglesi
his body was never found, and the ruby
has never yet been recovered. And fear
that to day there are some VINO VIII ian. IAN
back from this subject into the sicKehlhg;
killing jungles of their sin, carrying gem OF
infinite vaIue-a priceless soul-to be loSt
forever o, that that ruby might hash
in the eternal coronation But no.
There are some, | fear, in THIS audience VINO
,,r,, a yyov from tIlis offered mercy, and com
fort, and Divine sympathy; notwithstanding
that Christ, for all who would accept lilS
grace, trudged the long way, and suffered
the decorating thongs, and received IN Hls
ace the expectorations of the filthy
mob. and for the guilty, and the discour-
lged, and the discomforted of the race, took
the vinegar May God Almighty break the
nfatuation, and lead yOn out INTO the strong
hope. and the good cheer, and the s~ Is
tbiS trit, Yt f,OsDpl