Connecticut western news., 1890-05-14
OMNISCIENT POWER.


 natural law of gravitation when he shook off from his feet the clutch of Mount Olivet. People talk as though cold iron, unsympathetic, natural law controlled everything. The reign of law is a majestic thing, but the God who made it has a right to break it, and again and again has broken it, and again and again will break it. A law is only Gods way of doing things, and if he chooses to do them some other way he has right to do so. A law is not strong enough to shackle the Al mighty.
 Christ broke botanical law when, one Monday morning in March, on the way from Bethany to Jerusalem, by few words he turned full leaved fig tree into a lifeless stick. He broke ichthyological law when, without any natural inducement, he swung great school of fish into part of Lake Tibe- rias, where the fishermen had cast their nets for eight or ten hours without the capture of minnow; and by making fish help pay the tax by yielding 1IOIl US llOuUIl d leOlIldu SCtlcT. SuT1SI broke the law of storms by compelling, with word, the angered sea to hush its frenzy, and the winds to quit their believing He broke geological law when he made the devils possess the swine of Gadara. He broke the law of economics when he made enough bread for five thousand people out of five biscuits that would not ordinarily have been enough for ten of the hungry He broke intellectual law when, by word, he silenced maniac into placid ity.
 He broke physiological law when, by touch, he strengthened a. woman who, for eighteen years, had been bent almost double, and when he put spring into the foot of inhumated Lag arus, and when, without medicine, he gave the dying girl back in health to the Syro-P -Phpnician mother, and when he made the palatial home of the no bleman resound again with the laugh ter of his restored boy, and when, without knife or battery, he set cata- racted eyes to seeing again, and the drum of deaf ears to vii brating again, and the nerves of paralyzed arms to thrilling again, and then when in leaving the earth he defed all atmospheric law and physiological law, and that law which has in it withes and cables and the law of gravitation.
 THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
 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 subjects of blind fatality, but of a sympathizing divinity. Have you never seen typhoid fever break, or a storm suddenly quiet, or ship beams end right itself, or fog lift, or a parched sky break in showers, or a perplexity disentangled or the incon- reform at the call of prayer2 I have seen it; multitudes have seen it. You have, if you have been willing to see it. Deride not the faith cure. Be- cause impostors attempt it, is noth- ing against good men whom God hath honored with marvellous restorations. Pronounce nothing impossible to prayer and trust. Because you and I cannot effect it is no reason why others may not.
 By the same argument could prove that Raphael never painted Madonna, and that Mendelssohn never wrote an oratorio, and that Phidias never chis- eled 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 tele- scopic 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 new heaven and a new earth, "The prayer of faith shall save the sick" The faith curists may, in l this war against disease be only skir- mishing before general engagement in which all the maladies of earth shall be routed. Surely. allopathy and homeopathy and hydropathy and eclecticism need reinforcement from somewhere. Why not from the faith and prayer of the consecrated?
 The mightiest school of medicine may yet be the schoo, of Christ. ] do not know but that disease, now by all schools pronounced incurable, may give Way under gospel bombardment. I do Lot know but that the day may come when faith and prayer shall raise the dead. Strauss and Woolston and Spinoza and Hume and Schleiermacher rejected the miracles of our past. I do not propose to be like them, and reject the miracles of the far future. This l know, the Christ of Ascension day IS m;rhtier than any natural laws, for OH the day of which 1 speak he tramplcd down the strongest of them all. Law is mighty, but he who made it is mlghtier Drive out fatalism from your theology and give grace the throne.
 CHRIST'S LAST BLESSING.
 Standing today on the ascension peak of Mount Olivet am also glad dened at the closing gesture, the last gesture Christ ever made ''He lifted up his hands and blessed them," says the inspired account of our Lords de- parture. I am so glad he lifted up his hands. Gestures are often more sig nifcant than words, attitudes than arguments Christ had made gest- ure of contempt when with his finger he wrote on the ground; gesture of repulsion when he said, ''Get thee be-