Connecticut western news., 1890-11-26

flor women are first to notice such things-found that the provisions had fallen short and she told Christ, and he, to relieve the embarrassment of the house keeper, who had invited more guests than the pantry warranted, be, came the butler of the occasion, and out of a cluster of few sympathetic words squeezed a beverage of hun dred and twenty-six gallons of wine in which was not one drop of into1icant, or it would have left that party as maudlin and drunk as the great cen tennial banquet in New York two years ago left senators and governors and generals and merchant princes. The difference between the wine at the wedding in Cana and the wine at the banquet in New York being that the Lord made the one and the devil made the other. @ aa a
 We got off our horses and examined some of these water jars at Cana, said to be the very ones that held the plain water that Christ turned into the pur- pie bloom of an especial vintage. l measured them and found them eight cen inches from edge to edge and nine teen inches deep, and declined to ac- cept their identity. But we realized the immensity of supply of hundred and twenty-six gallons of wine. What was that for? Probably one gallon would have been enough, for it was only an additional installment of what had already been provided, and it is probable that the housekeeper could not have guessed more than one gallon out of the way. But hundred and twenty-six gallons What will they do with the surplus9 An, it was just like our Lord! Those young people were about to start in housekeeping, and their means were limited, and that big supply, whether kept in their pantry or sold, will be mighty help.
 You see there was no strychnine or logwood or nux vomica in that bever- age, and as the Lord made it it would keep. He makes mountains and seas that keep thousands of years and cer- tainly he could make beverage that would keep four or five years. Among the arts and inventions of the future I hope there may be some one that can press the juices from the grape and so mingle them without one drop of dalnning alcohol that it will keep for years. And the more of it you take the clearer will be the brain and the healthier the stomach And here is a remarkable fact that in my recent journey-I travelled through Italy and Greece and Egypt and Pales- tine and Syria and Turkey, and how many intoxicated people do you think l. saw in all these five great realms9 Not one. We must in. our Christian ized lands have got hold of some kind of beverage that Christ did not make.
 Oh, I am so glad that Jesus was present at that wedding, and last De- cember, standing at Cana, that we'd ding came back! Night had fallen on the village and its surroundings. The bridegroom had put on his head bright turban and a garland of flowers, and his garments had been made fra grant with frankincense and camphor. an odor which the oriental especially likes. Accompanied by groomsmen, and preceded by a band of musicians with flutes and drums and horns and by torches in full blaze, he starts for the brides home This river of fire is met by another river of f1re-the torches of the bride and bridesmaids -fambeau answering fambeau. The bride is in white roble, and her veil not only GOV CTS her face but envelopes her body. Her trousseau is as elaborate as the re- sources of her fathers house per- init. Her attendants are decked with all the ornaments they own or can borrow; but their own per sonal charms make tame the jewels, for those oriental women eclipse in attract iveness all others except those of our own land. The dalnson rose is in their cheek, and the diamond in the luster of their eyes, and the blackness of the night in their long locks, and in their step is the gracefulness of the morning At the first sight of the torches of the bridegroom and his attendants coming over the hill the cry rings through the home of the bride: ''They are in dghtl Get ready! Behold the bridegroom cometh! Go ye out to meet him. As the two processions approach each other the timbrels strike and the songs conmingle, and then the two process sions become one, and march toward the bridegroom's house and meet a third procession which is made up of the friends of both bride and bride groom. Then all enter the house and the dance begins and the door is shut
 And all this Christ uses to illustrate the joy with which the ransomed of garlanded with clouds and robed in the morning and trumpeted by the thunders of the last day. Look! There he comes. down off the hills of heaven, the bridegroom! And let us start out to hail him, for I hear the voices of the judgment day sounding, "Behold the bridegroom cometh! Go ye out to meet himl" And the disap- pointment of those who have declined the invitation to the gospel wedding is presented under the figure of door heavily closed. You hear it slam. Too late The door is shut!
 WE MUST HASTEN.
 But we must hasten on, for do not mean to close my eyes tonight till l see
 from a mountain top Lake Galilee, on whose banks next Sabbath we will worship and on whose waters the fol lowing morning we will take sail. On