The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1889-06-26

hundred put TOUR thousand SnlpS. AutuoiS
have taken pains to say that CHRIST was not
affected by these surroundings, and that he
| lived from within, lived outward and
| independent of circumstances. SO lar
| from that being true, he was the
most sensitive being that ever walked
the earth. and If pale invalid's
weak finger could not touch His robe with
out strength going out from Him, these
| mountains and seas could not have touched
His eye without irradiating His entire nature
| with their magnifcence / warrant that
| He mounted and explored all the hills
| around Nazareth, among them Hermon with
| its crystal coronet Of perpetual snow, and
Carmel and Tabor and Gilboa, and they all
| had their sublime echo in after time from the
Olivetic pulpit.
! And then it was not uncultivated gran
deur These hills carried in their arms or on
their backs gardens, groves, orchards, ter
races, vineyards cactus, sycamores These
| outbranching foliages did not have to wait
| for the foods before their silence was bro
ken, for through them and over them and in
circles round them and under them were
| pelicans, were thrushes, were sparrows,
were nightingales, were larks, were quails,
were blackbirds, were cartridges, were bull
bulls. Yonder the white focks of sheep
showed down over the pasture lands. And
yonder the brook rehearses to the pebbles
| its adventures down the rocky shelving.
| Yonder are the Oriental homes, the house.
wife with pitcher on the shoulder entering
the door, and down the lawn In front chill
dren reveling among the flaming fora. And
all this spring and song and grass and sun
| shine and shadow woven into the most ex-
| quisite nature that ever breathed or wept
| or sung or suffered. Through studying the
| sky between the hills Christ had noticed
| the weather signs, and that a crimson sky
| at night meant dry weather next day, and
| that crimson sky in the morning meant
| wet weather before night. And how beau
tifully he made use of 1t in after years, as
he drove down upon the pestiferous Phari-
see and Sadducee, by crying out: When it
| is evening We say it will be fair weather, for
the sky is red, and in the morning it will be
foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and
lowering. Dye hypocrites, We can discern
the face OF the sky, but can We not discern
the signs of the times" By day, as every
boy has done, he watched the barnyard fowl
at sight Of over swinging hawk cluck her
chickens under wing and in after years he
said: 20, Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How
often would I have gathered thee as hen
gathereth her chickens under her wing!"
BY night he had noticed his mother by the
plain candle light which, as ever and anon
it was snuffed and the removed wick put
down on the candlestlck, beamed brightly
through all the family sitting room as his
mother was mending his garments that had
been torn during the days wandering among
the rocks or bushes, and years afterward it
all came out in the smile of the greatest SER
mon ever preached: "Nether do men light q
candle and put it under a 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
years after he enjoined: "Lay up
for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where
| neither moth nor rust can corrupt" His
boyhood spentamong 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
| carpenters shop he watched it gathering
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 trium-
plant stands the other, and he noticed that
one had shifting sand for foundation and
| the other an eternal rock for basis; and
twenty years after he built the whole scene
into aperoration Of food and whirlwind that
seized the audience and lifted them into the
heights of sublimity with the two great
arms of pathos and terror, which sublime
words render, asking you as far as posi-
BILE to forget that you ever heard them be-
fore: "Whosoever heareth these sayings
of mine and doeth them, will liken him
unto wise man, which built his house
upon 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 q rock And every one
that heareth these sayings of mine, and
doeth them not, shall be likened unto
foolish 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." bsAt
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 nightingales call, and broken through
the fiowery hedge and looked out of the
embrasures of the fortress, and drank from
| the wells and chased the butterflies, which
travellers say have always been one of the
fitting beauties of that landscape, and
talked with the strange people of Damascus
and Egypt and Sapphoris and Syria, who in
caravans or on foot passed through His
neighborhood, the dogs barking at their ap-
proach at shutdown. Asafterwars He was
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 theopposite
of those juveniles who sit around morbid
and unelastic, old men at ten. l warrant
He was able to take His own part and
to take the part Of Others In that
| village of Nazareth l 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 afterward in no limited terms de-
nounced hypocrite and Pharisee, warrant
never let such Juvenile villain impose upon
less vigorous childhood and yet 60 unscathed
and undefended. At ten years he was In
sympathy with the underlings as he was Mt
thirty and three. want no further inspired
or uninspired information to persuade me
that he was a snlend;d hoy n rodiant hoy