The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1890-05-28

pay the tax by yielding from It's mouth
a Roman slater. Christ broke the Law
OF storms by compelling, with
word, tho angered sea to hush
its frenzy, and tho winds
to quit their believing. He broke
geological law when lie made tn devils
possess the swine of Gadara. Ho broke
the law of economics when lie made
enough bread for 5000 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 a touch, He Strengthened woman
who, for eighteen years, had been al.
most double, and when He put spring
into the foot of Illuminated Lazarus, and
when, without medicine, He gave the
dying girl back in health to the Syro-
Pb9nician mother. and when He made
the palatial home of the nobleman re-
sound again with the laughter of his re-
stored boy, and when, without knife or
battery, He set cataracted eyes to seeing
again, and the drum of deaf ears to vi
brating again, and the nerves Of para
lyzed arms to thrilling again, and then
when in leaving the earth He defied 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 a sympa.
thizing divinity. Have you never seen
typhoid fever break, or storm sudden
ly quiet, or a ship a-beam's-end right
itself, or fog lift, or parched sky
break in showers, or perplexity olsen
tangled, or the inconsolable take solace,
or the hayward reform at the call Of
prayer? have seen it; multitudes have
seen it. You have, If you have beeI
willing to see it. Deride not the faith.
cure. Because imposters attempt it, is
nothing against good men whom God
hath honored with marvellous restora.
tions. Pronounce nothing impossible
to prayer and trust. Because you and I
can not effect it is no reason why others
may not. BY the same argument could
prove that Raphael never painted Ma
donna, and that Mendelssohn never
wrote an oratorio, and that Phidias
never chiseled a statue. Because we
can not accomplish it ourselves we are
not to conclude that others may not
There are in immensely great ranges Of
mists which have proved, under closer
telescope scrutiny, to be the storehousc
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 new earth.
"The prayer of faith shall save the
sick" The faith-curists may. in this
war against disease, be only skirmish-
| ing before general engagement, in
which all the maladies of earth shall be
routed. Surely, allopathy and homeo-
pathy 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 school Of Christ.
do not know but that diseases, now by
all schools pronounced incurable, may
give way under gospel bombardment.
do not know but that day may come
when faith and prayer shall raise the
dead Strauss and Woolston and Spinoza
and Hume and Schleiermacher rejected
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 Assertion Day is mightier
than any natural laws, for on the day of
which speak He trampled down the
strongest of them all. Law is mighty,
but he who made it is mightier. Drive
out fatalism from your theology, and
give grace the throne.
Standing to-day on the Ascension
peak of Mt. Olivet am also gladdened
at the closing guesture, the last gesture
that Christ ever made. He lifted up
His hands and blessed them" says the
inspired account Of cur Lords 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, Get
thee behind me, Satan;" gesture of con.
domination when lie said, "Woe unto
you, Pharisees and hypocrites." But
His last gesture, His Olivetic gesture, is
gesture of benediction. He lifted up
His hands and blessed them. His arms
are extended, and the palms of His
hands turned downward, and SO He drop
ped benediction upon Olivet, benedic.
ton upon Palestine, benediction upor
all the earth.
AS far as the excited and intensified
vision Of the group on Olivet could see
Him, and after He was so far W
they could no long hear His words, they
saw the gesture OF the outspresd hands,
the benediction. And that is His atti.
tude to-day. His benediction upon the
worlds climates, and they are chang.
ing, and will keep on changing unit.
the atmosphere shall be comming'
ling Of October and June. Benedic.
ton upon the deserts till they whiten
with lily and blush with rose, and vel
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. Benediction upon the whole
earth until every mountain is an Oliyet