Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-15


yzed arms to thrilling again, and then
when IN leaving the earth he defled all
atmospheric law and physiological law,
and that law which has in it withes and
cables and girders enough to hold the
universe, the law of gravitation.
The Christ who proved Himself on SO
many occasions, and especially the last,
superior to law, still lives; and every
day, in answer to prayer for the good of
the world, He is overriding the law.
Blessed be God that we are not the sub
Jects of blind fatality, but Of O sympa-
thlzing divinity. Have you never seen
typhoid fever break, or a storm sudden
ly quiet, or ship a-beam-end right it
self, or fog lift, or parched sky break
in showers, or perplexity disentan-
gled, or the inconsolable take solace, or
the hayward child reform at the call of
prayer? have seen it, multitudes have
seen it. You have, if you have been
willing to see it. Deride not the faith
cure. Because imposters al
tempt it is nothing against good
men whom God hath honored
with marvellous RESERVATIONS. Pronounce
nothing impossible to prayer and trust.
Because you and cannot effect 1t, is no
reason why others may not. By the
same argument 1 could prove that
Raphael never painted q Madonna, and
that Mendelssonn never wrote an ora
torio, and that Phidias never chiselled a
statue. Because we cannot accomplish
it ourselves, we are not to conclude that
others may not. There are in immensitY
great ranges of mists which have proved,
under closer telescope scrutiny, to be
the storehouse of worlds, and / do not
know but from that passage in James,
which, to some of US is yet misty and
dim, there may roll out q new
heaven and new earth, 1.-the
prayer of faith shall save the sick. -
The faith-curists may, in this war
against disease, be only skirmishing be-
fore general engagement, in which all
the maladies of earth shall be routed.
Turely, allopathy and homeopathy and
hydropathy and eclecricism need REIN
forcement from somewhere. Why not
from the faith and prayer of the conse-
Grated. The mightiest school of medicine
may yet be he school of Christ. 1 do
not know but that diseases, now by all
schools pronounced incurable, may give
way under gospel bombardment. 1 dos
not know. but that the day may coE1B
when faith and prayer shall raise the
dead, Strauss and Woolston and Spinoza
and Hume and Schleiermacher rejected I
the miracles of the far past. do not
propose TO be like them and reject the
miracles of the far future. This know,
THE CHRIST OF ASCENSION DAY
is mightier than any natural laws, for on
the day of which 1 speak he trampled
down the strongest of them all. Law is
mighty, but he who made 1t is mightier.
Drive out fatalism from your theology
and give grace the throne.
Standing to-day on the Ascension peak
of Mount Olivet, sm also gladdened at
the closing gesture, the last gesture
Christ ever made. "He lifted up His
hands and blessed them, - says the in
spired account of our Lord g departure.
am so glad He lifted up His hands.
Gestures are often more significant than
words, attitudes than arguments. Christ
had made a gesture of contempt when
with His finger He wrote on the ground;
gesture of repulsion when He said, HGet
thee behind me, Satan;' gesture of con-
domination when He said, "Woe unto
you, Pharisees and hypocrites. But
His last gesture, His OliYetic gesture, is
a gesture of benedictioD. He lifted up
His hands and blessed them. His arms
are extended, and the palms of HIS
hands turned downward, and so He
dropped benediction upon Olivet, bene-
diction upon Palestine, benediction upon
all the earth.
The cruel world took Him in at the
start on cradle of straw, and at last |
thrust Him out with the point of the |
I'm
beneath, he saw on one side the Bethle-
hem where they put Him among the cat
tie, and Calvary on the other side, where |
they put Him among the thieves. AS far |
as the excited and intensified vision |
of the group on Olivet could see !
Him, and after He was SO far |
up they could no longer hear
His words, they saw the gesture of the |
outspread hands. the benediction. And |
that is His attitude to-day. his bene-
diction upon the world IS climates, and |
they are changing, and will keep on
changing until the atmosphere shall be q
commingling of October and June. Bene-
dictiou upon the deserts till they whiten
with lily, and blush with rose and yellow
with cowslIp and emerald with grass.
Beuediclion upon governments till they
become more just and humane. Bene-
diction upon nations till they kneel in
prayer. Benediction upon the whole
earth until every mountain is an Olivet
of conservation, and every lake Galilee
on whose mosaic of crystal, and opal,
and sapphire divine spendors shall walk.
Oh, take the benediotion of His pardon,
sinners young, and sinners old, sinners
and sinners abandoned.
Take the benediction of His COM
fort, all ye broken-hearted under
and privation, and myriad
wees. Take His benediction, all We sick
beds, whether under acute spasms of (
pain, or in long-protraoted invalidism.
For orphanage, and childlessness, and
benediction. For cradles
and trundle-beds and rocking -chairs on
a benedictiop. For Hse
and for death,
FOR TIME AND FOR ETERNITY, ~
FOR earth and for heaven, penediction.
sublimest gesture ever made, the last
gesture of our ascending Lord. land
1e lifted up His hands, aud blessed
hem.''
Is our attitude the same2 Is it the
'lenched fist or the open palm7 Is it
wrath or is it kindness? Is it diabolism
y Christism? God give Us the grace of