The Brookhaven leader., 1890-05-22

| whom God hath hOnored with marvellous
| reservations. Pronounce nothing i'm
possible TO prayer and trust Be-
cause you and can not eff
feet &c Is no reason why others
| may not BY the same argu-
ment could prove that Raphael never
painted Madonna, and that
Mendelssohn never wrote an oratorio,
and that Phidias never chiseled .
statue. Because we can not accomplish
1t ourselves we are not to conclude
that others may not There arc in
immensely 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 a
new heaven and new earth: Tho
| prayer OF faith shall save the sick" The
faith-curists may, in this war against
disease, DO only skirmisEing before a
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 conse-
| Grated? The mightieSt school OF medi-
cine may yet be the school of Christ /
| do not know but that diseases, now by
| all schools pronounced incurablc, may
give way under Gospel bonn bardment
| do not know but that the day may
come when faith and prayer shall raise
| the dead. Stra Lss, and Woolston, and
Spinoza, and Hume, and Schleiermacher
rejected the miracles of the far past /
do not propose to be like them, and re-
! iect the miracles of tho far future. This
| / know, the Christ Of Ascension Day is
mightie than any natural laws, for on
the day of which | speak He trampled
down the strongest of them all. Law is
mighty, but lie who made it is mightier.
Drive out fanaticism from your theolo-
gy, and give grace the throne.
Standing to-day on the Ascension
Peak of Mount Oliyet I 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. am so glad He lifted up His
hands. Gestures are often more signii-
cant than words, attitudes than argu-
ments. Christ had made gesture Of
contempt when with His finger He
wrote on the ground; gesture of repul-
sion when He said: Get thee behind
me, Satan, "Woe unto you, Pharisees
and hypocrites." But His last gesture,
His Olivetic gesture, is gesture of ben
ediction. lie lifted up His hands and
blessed them. His arms are extended,
and the palms of His hands turned down
ward, and SO He dropped benedicJion
upon Olivet, benediction upon Pales-
tine, Denediction 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
spear; but benediction! Ascending I'M
til beneath, lie saw on one side the
bethlehem, where they put Him among
the cattle, and Calvary on the other
side, where they put Him among the
thieves. AS far as the excited and in
tensified 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
Ills dIUlbuuo IllS
upon the worlds climates, and they are
changing, and will keep on changing
until the atmosphere shall be COM
mingling of October and June. Benc-
diction upon the deserts till they whiten
with lily, and blush with rose, and yell
low with cowslip, and emerald with
grass. Benediction upon governments
till they become more just and
humane. Benediction upon nations
till they kneel in prayer. Benedic-
tion upon the whole earth until every
mountain is an Olivet of conservation,
! and every lake Galilee on whose
mosaic of crystal, and opal, and sap
phire, divine splendorS shall walk. Oh,
take the benediction of His pardon, sim
ners young and sinners old, sinners
moderate, and sinners abandoned. Take
| the benediction of His comfort, and ye
broken-hearted under bereavement and
privation and myraid woes. Take His
benediction all We sickbeds, whether
| under acute spasms of pain or in long
protracted invalidism. For orphanage
and childlessness and widowhood a
bencdiction. For cradles and trundle-
DcuS, dhu IOohAhS -Oh"iio VI WV
genarians, benediction. For life and
for death, for time and for eternity, for
earth and for Heaven, a benediction.
Sublimest gesture ever made, the last
gesture of our ascending Lord. And
He lifted up His hands and blessed
them
Is our attitude the same? Is it the
clenched fist or the open palm? Is it
wrath or is it kindness? Is it diabolism
or Christism? God give us the grace OF
the open palm, open upward to get tho
| benediction, open downward to pro-
nounce a benediction. A lady was pass
ing along the street and suddenly ran
against ragged boy, and she said: 81
beg your pardon my boy, did not mean
to run against you; l am very sorry"
And the boy took off the piece of a cap
he had upon his head and said: You
have my parding, lady, and you
may run agin me and knock
me clear down; ] won't care"
And turning to comrade he
said: THAT nearly took me of
my feet. Nobody ever asked my par
ding before" Kindness! kindness
Fill the world with it. There has al
ways been too much Of disregard to
others. Illustrated in 1880, in England,
| when ninety-five thousand acres OF
marshes were drained for health and
for crop-raising, and the sportsmen de-
J stroyed the drainage works because
has f0p