The Brookhaven leader., 1890-12-11


was as much as we could do to hold
and the waves had continued to in
crease in violence the following fifteen
minutes in the same ratio as in the first
five, and We had been still at their
mercy, our bones would have been
bleaching in the bottom of Lake
Gennesaret instead OF our being here
to tell the story. But the same
Power that rescued the fishermen of old
to-day safely landed our party. What
a Christ for rough weather. All the
sailor boys ought fly to Him as did those
Galilean mariners. All you in the
forecastle, and all you who run up and
down the slippery ratlines, take to sea
with you Him who with quiet word
sent the winds back through the mount
ain gorges. Some of you jack tars to
whom these words will come need TO
tack ship" and change your course IL
you are going to get across this sea of
life safely, and gain the Heavenly har-
Dor. Delay there. Ready about! Helms
a-lea! Mainsail haul! You have too
valuable a cargo on board to run the
Goodwins or the Skerries.
Star of peace, beam DER the bIllow
Bless the soul that signs for thee;
Bless the sailors lonely pillow,
Far, far at sea.
Here at Capernaum, the Arabs hav-
ing in their arms carried us ashore to
the only place where our Lord ever had
a pastorate, and we stepped amid the
ruins of the church whore He preached
again and again, the synagogue, whose
rich sculpturing lay there, not as when
others see it in spring-time covered with
weeds and loathsome with reptiles, but
in that December completely uncovered
to our agitated and intense gaze. On
one stone of that synagogue is the
sculpturing of pot of ma ma,
artistic commemoration of the time
when the Israelites were fed by mama
in the wilderness, and to which sculpt-
uring no doubt Christ pointed upward
while He was preaching that sermon on
this very spot in which He said: Not
as your fathers did eat mamma and are
dead; he that eateth of this bread shall
live forever" Wonderful Capernaum!
Scene of more miracles than any place
in all the earth! Blind eyes kindling
with the morning. Withered arms made
to pulsate. Lepers blooming into health.
The dead girl terminated.
These Arab tents which on this
December day find in Palestine, dis
appear and l see Capernaum as it was
when Jesus was pastor of the church
here. Look at that wealthy home, the
architecture, the marble front, up
holstery, the slaves in uniformat the
doorway. 1t is the residence of
courtier of Herod, probably Chuza by
name, his wife Joanna, Christian
disciple. But something is the
matter. The slaves are in great ex-
element, and the courtier living there
runs down the front steps and takes
horse and puts him at full run across
the country. The boy of that noble
man is dying of typhoid fever. All the
doctors have failed to give relief. But
about five miles up the country, at
Cana, there is Divine Doctor, Jesus
by name, and the agonizcd father has
gone for Him, and with what earnest
ness those can understand who have
had dying child in the house This
cour tier cries to Christ: Come down
ere my child diev
While the father is absent, and at one
o'clock in the afternoon, the people
watching the dying boy SEQ a change
in the countenance, and Joanna, the
mother, at one side of his couch, says:
why, this darling is getting we'll; the
fever has broken; see the perspiration
on his forehead; did any of you give
him any new medicine?" No" is the
answer. The boy turns on his pillow,
his delirium gone, and asks for some
thing to eat and says: where's ia
ther?" Oh, he has gone up to Cana to
get young doctor of about thirty-on
years of age But no doctor is needed
now in this house at Capernaum. The
people look at the sun-dial to find what
time of the day it is, and see it is just
past noon, and one o'clock. Then they
start out and meet the returning father,
and as soon as they come within speak
ing distance they shout at the top of
their voices: Your boy is getting
WE'LL" us it possible?" says the
father, when did the change for the
better take placer" Zone o'clock" is
the answer. Why" says the courtier,
that is just the hour that Jesus said to
me Thy son liveth." One O'clock!
Do not mix up this case with the
angry discussions about Christian sci
ence, but accept the doctrine, as old as
the Bible, that God does answer prayer
for the sick. That Capernaum boy was
not the only illustra ton of the fact
that prayer is mightier than typhoid
fever And there is not doctor Of
large practice, but has come into the
sick room of some hopeless case and,
in a cheerful manner, il he were a
Christian, or with bewildered manner
if he were a skeptic, said: ''Well, what
have you been doing with this patient?
What have you been giving him? The
pulse is better. The crisis is past.
After all, think he will get we'll"
Prayer will yet be acknowledged in the
worlds materia medica, and the cry is
just as appropriate now as when Chuza,
the courtier from Capernaum, uttered in
Christ's hearing: Come down ere my
child die!" If the prayer be not an
swered in the way we wish it is be-
cause God has something better for the
child than earthly recovery, and there
are thousands of men and women now
alive in answer to fathers and moth
ers' prayers, myself one of the multi
tude. For have card my parents
tell ne when at three years of
age scarlet fever seemed to
have done its full work on me,