The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-06-26

under her wing" By night He had noticed
Els mother by the plain candle light which,
as ever and anon it was snuffed and the re-
moved wick put down on the candlestick,
beamed brightly through all the family
sitting room as His mother was mending His
garments that had been torn during the days
wanderings among the rocks or bushes, and
years afterward it all came out in the
sinlile Of the greatest sermon ever preached:
Neither do men light candle and put it
under bushel but in a candlestick and it
giveth light to all who are in the house.
Let your light so shine" Some time when
His mother in the autumn took out the clothes
that had been put away for the summer He
noticed how the moth miller few out and the
coat dropped apart ruined and useless, and so
twenty years after He enjoined: Lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven where neither
moth nor rust can corrupt" His boyhood
spent among birds and flowers they
all caroled and bloomed again fifteen
years after as He cries out: "Behold the
fowls of the air." Consider the lilies" A
great storm one day during Christ's boyhood
blackened the heavens and angered the
rivers. Perhaps standing in the door OF the
louder and wilder until two cyclones, one
sweeping down from Mount Tabor and the
other from Mount Carmel, met In the valley
of Esdraelon and two houses are caught in the
fury and crash goes the one and triumphant
stands the other, and He noticed that one had
shifting sand for a foundation and the other
an eternal rock for basis: and twenty
years after He built the whole scene into q
peroration Of food and whirlwind that seized
His audience and lifted them into the heights
of sublimity with the two great arms Of pa
thos and terror, which sublime words I
render, asking you as far as possible to for
get that you ever heard them before: "Who-
soever heareth these sayings of Mine, and
doeth them, I will hken him unto
wise man, which built his house
upon a rock; and the rain descended, and
the floods came and the winds blew, and
beat upon that house; and it fell not; for it
was founded upon rock. And every one
that heareth these sayings Of Mine, and doeth
man, which built his house upon the sand; and
the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that
house; and it fell; and great was the fall
Of it."
Yes, from the naturalness, the simplicity.
the freshness of His parallels and SMILES and
metaphors in manhood discourse know that
He had been boy of the fields and had bathed
in the streams and heard the nightingale's
call, and broken through the fowery hedge
and looked out Of the embrasureS Of the for
tress, and drank from the wells and chased
the butterflies, which travellers say have al
ways beea one of the fitting beauties of that
landscape. and talked with the strange peo-
pie from Damascus and Egypt and sapphoris
foot passed through His neighborhood,
the dogs barking at their ap-
proach at sundown. As afterward He wasa
perfect man, in the time Of which speak He
was perfect boy, with the spring Of boys
foot, the sparkle Of boys eye, the rebound
of boys life and just the opposite of those
juveniles who sit around morbid and un-
elastic, old men at ten. I warrant He was
able to take His own part and to take the part
of others. In that village of Nazareth am
certain there was what is found in all the
neighborhoods Of the earth, that terror of
children, the bully, who seems born to strike,
to punch, to bruise, to overpower the less
muscular and robust. The Christ who after
ward in no limited terms denounced hypo-
critic and Pharisee, I warrant, never let such
Juvenile villain impose upon less vigorous
childhood and yet go unscathed and unde-
Tended At ten years He was in sympathy
with the underlings as He was at thirty and
thirty three. want no further inspired or
uninspired information to persuade me ttat
grandest, hottest, naightest boy Of all the ages.
Hence I commend Him as boys Christ.
What multitudes between ten and fifteen
years have found Him out as the one just
suited by His own personal experience to help
any boy.
But having shown you the divine lad in the
fields, must show you Him in the mechanics
shop. Joseph, His father, died very early,
Immediately after the famous trip to the
Temple, and this lad not only to support Him.
SCI, but support His mother, and what that is
some of you know There is royal race of
boys on earth now doing the same thing.
They wear no crown. They have no purple
robe adroop from their shoulders. The plain
chair on which they sit is as much unlike
throne as anything you can imagine. But
what sacrifices they go, and through oil
eternity God will keep paying them for their
flal behavior. They shall get full measure
of reward, the measure pressed down, shaken
together and running over. They have their
example in this boy Christ taking care of His
mother. He had been taught the car
penter's trade by His father. The boy
had done the palmer work at the shop
while His father had put on the finish
ing touches of the work. The boy also
cleared away the chips and blocks and
pieces Of work while the father Joined them.
In our day we have all kinds Of mechanics
and the work is divided up among them.
But to be a carpenter in Christ's boyhood
days meant to make plows, yokes, shovels,
wagons, tables chairs sofas, houses, and al
most everything that was made. Fortunate
was it that the boy had learned the trade,
for, when the head Of the family dies,
it is q grand thing to have the child
able to take care Of himself and help take
care Of others. Now that Joseph, His father,
4 ~. Nf for ct1rN-
port comes down on this boy, hear from
morning to night His hammer pounding, His
saw vacillating, His axe descending, His gim..
lets boring, and standing amid the dust and
debris Of the shop I find the perspiration
gathering on His temples and notice the IA
tigue Of His arm, and as BE stops moment to
rest I see Him painting, His hand on His side,
from the exhaustion. Now He goes forth
in the morning loaded with implements
of work heavier than any modern kit OF
tools. Under the tropical sun He sWeiters.
Lifting, pulling, adjusting, cleaving, splitting
all day long. At nightfal He goes home
to the plain supper provided by His mother
and sits down too tired to talk. Work!
work! work! You cannot tell Christ any
thing now about blistered hands or aching
ankles or bruised fingers or stiff joints or
rising in the morning as tired as when you
laid down. While yet boy He knew
it all, He felt it ali, He suffered it all.
The boy carpenterl The boy wagon
maker The boy house builder! o Christ,
we have seen Thee when full grown in Pilates
police court room, we have seen Thee when full
grown Thou vert assassinated on Golgotha.
but, o Christ, let all the weary artisans and
mechanicsof the earth see Thee while yet I'M
dersized and arms not yet muscularized and
with the undeveloped strength of juvenes-
cence trying to take Thy fathers place in
gaining the livelihood for the family.
But, having seen Christ the boy of the
fields and the boy in the mechanics shop I
show you a more marvellous scene, Christ
tba crnooth- -hro,rad lad amonp the long,