Connecticut western news., 1890-05-14
CHRIsT's ASCENSION TO HEAVEN.

Leaning back, and with pallid cheek and uplifted eyes, the disciples see their Lord rising from the solid earth. Then, rushing forward, they would grasp his feet to hold him fast, but they are out of reach, and it is too late to detain him. Higher than the tops of the fig trees from which they had plucked the fruit. Higher than the olive trees that shaded the mount. Higher until he is within sight of the Bethlehem where he was born, and the Jordan where he was baptized, and the Golgotha where he was slain. Higher, until on stairs of feecy cloud he steps. Higher, until, into sky bluer than the lake that could not sink him, he disappears into sea of glory whose billowing splendors hide him.
 The fishermen watch and watch, wondering if the law of nature will not reassert itself, and he shall in few moments come back again, and they shall see him descending; first his scared feet coming in sight, then the scared side, then the scared brow, and they may take again his scared hand. But the moments pass by, and the hours, and no reappearance. Gone out of sight of earth, but come within sight of heaven. And rising still, not welcomed by one angelic choir like those who one Christmas night escorted him down, but all heaven turns out to greet him home, and the temples have especial anthem, and the palaces es- pecial banquet, and the streets especial throngs; and all along the line to the foot of the throne, for years vacated but now again to be taken, there are arches lifted, and banners waved, and trumpets sounded, and doxologies chanted, and coronets cast down.
 The angels throng'd his chariot wheels,
 And bore him to his throne;
 Then swept their golden harps and sung
 'The glorious work is done''
 It was the greatest day in heaven! As he goes up the steps of the throne that thirty-three years before he abdi- cated for our advantage, there rises from all the hosts of heaven a shout, saintly, cherubic, seraphic, archangel- ic, ''Hallelujah! Amen!" t
 garden of olives thou dear honored spot,
 The fame of thy glory shall ne'er be forgot
 HE GAN LIFT US.
 No wonder that for at least fourteen hundred years the churches have, forty days after Easter, kept Ascen- sion day; for the lessons are most in- spiring and glorious. It takes much of the uncertainty out of the idea of heaven, when from Olivet we see hu- man nature ascending. The same body that rose from Joseph's tomb ascended from Mount Olivet. Our human nature is in heaven today Just as they had seen Christ for forty days, he ascended, head, face, shoul- ders, hands, feet and the entire hu- man organism. Humanity ascended 1! Ah, how closely that keeps Christ in sympathy with those who are still in the struggle! Ascended scars, face scars, head scars, feet scars, shoulder scars
 That will keep him in accord with all the suffering, with all the weary, with all the imposed upon No more is he a spirit now than body, no more of heaven than earth Those of the celestial inhabitants who never saw our world, now walk around him and learn from his physical contour something of what our race will be when, in the resurrection, heaven will have uncounted bodies as we'll as un- counted spirits On Ascension day he lifted himself through the atmosphere of Palestine until, amid the immensi- ties, he disappeared. He was the only being the world ever saw who could lift himself. Surely if he could lift himself he can do the lesser deed of lifting us.
 No star goes down but climbs another sky,
 No sun sets here except to rise on high.
 Christ leads us all the way; through the birth hour, for he was born in Bethlehem through boyhood, for he passed it in Nazareth: through injus- tices, for he endured the outrages of Pilates court room; through death, for he suffered it on Calvary; through the sepulcher, for he lay three days within it's darkened walls; through resurrection, for the solid masonry gave way on the first Easter morning through ascension, for Mount Olivet watched him as he climbed the skies through the shining gates, for he en- tered them amid magnificent acclaim And here is gratifying situation that you never thought of: We will see our Lord just as he looked on earth. As he rose from the tomb he ascended from Mount Olivet. We shall see him as he looked on the road to Emmaus, as he appeared in the upper room in Jerusalem, as he was that day of vale dictory on the ridge from which he swung into the skies. How much we will want to see him
 WE SHOULD LOOK FOR CHRIST.
 I was reading of man born blind. He was married to one who took care of him all those years of darkness. A surgeon said to him, II can remove that blindness, and so he did. His sight given him, a rose was handed to the man who never before had seen a rose and he was in admiration of it, and his family whom he had never seen before now appeared to him, and he was in tears of rapture, when he suddenly cried out: II ought first to have asked to see the one who cured me; show me the doctor" When from our eyes the scales of earth shall fall, and we have our first vision of heaven, our first cry ought not to be, "Where are my loved onesa" Our first cry ought to be, "Where is Christ, who made all this possiblei Show me the doctor!' Glory be to God for ascended humanity
 Could we realize it, and that it is all l in sYmpathY for us we would have as