Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-12

Welding from its mouth q Roman slater.
Christ broke the law of storms by COM
polling, 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 5000 people out of five biscuits that
would not ordinarily have been enough
for ten of the hungry. He broke in
tellectual law when, by a word,
He sIlenced maniac into placiditY. He
broke physiological law when, by a
touch, He Strengthened q woman who
for eighteen years had been bent almost
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- Phoeni-
clan mother, and when he made the
PALATIAL HOME OF THE NoBLEMAN
resound again with the laughter of his
restored boy and when, withuot knife or
battery, He set cataraoted eyes to seeing
again, and the drum of deaf ears to vi
brating again, and the nerves of paral-
wed 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 q sympa-
thlzing divinity. Have you never seen
typhoid fever break, or a storm sudden
ly quiet, or a ship a-beam-end right it
self, or fog lift, or parched sky break
in showers, or a perplexity disentan-
gled, or the inconsolable take solace, or
the hayward child reform at the call of
prayer? l have seen it; multitudes have
seen it. You have, if you have been
willing to see it. Deride not the faith
cure. Because imposters at
tempt it is nothing against good
men whom God hath honored
with marvellous reservations. Pronounce
nothing impossible to prayer and trust.
Because you and 1 cannot effect 1t, is no
reason why others may not. By the
same argument 1 could prove that
Raphael never painted a Madonna, and
that Mendelssonn never wrote an ora
torio, and that Phidias never chiselled a
statue. Because we cannot 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 storehouse of worlds, and I do not
know but from that passage in James,
rvbi IN of OF fu
dim, there may roll out a new
heaven and a new earth, "The
prayer of faith shall save the sick. -
The faith-curists may, in this war
against disease, be only skirmishing be-
fore a general engagement, in which all
the maladies of earth shall be routed.
Turely, alIopathy and homeopathy and
hydropathy and eclecticism need REIN
forcement from somewhere. Why not
from the faith and prayer of the conse-
Grated. The mightiest school of medicine
may yet be he school of Christ. 1 do
not know but that diseases, now by all
schools pronounced incurable, may give
way under gospel bombardment. do
not 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 the far 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 mightier than any natural laws, for on
the day of which 1 speak he trampled
down the strongest of them all. Law is
mighty, but he who made 1t is mightier.
Drive out fatalism from your theology
and give grace the throne.
Standing day on the Ascension peak
of Mount Olivet, am also gladdened at
the closing gesture, the last gesture
Christ ever made. "He lifted up His
hands and blessed them, - says the in
spired account of our Lord IS departure.
1 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 He said, ''Woe unto
you, Pharisees and hYpocrites. But
His last gesture, His OliYetic gesture, is
a gesture of benedictioD. He lifted up
His hands and blessed them. His arms
are extended, and the palms of HIS
hands turned downward, and so He
dropped benediction upon Olivet, bene-
diction upon Palestine, benediction upon
all the earth.
The cruel world took Him in at the
start on a cradle of straw, and at last
thrust Him out with the point of the
spear; but benedictionl Ascending until
beneath, He saw on one side the Bethle-
hem where they put Him among the cat
tie, and Calvary on the other side, where
they put Him among the thieves. AS far
as the excited and intensified 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 His attitude to-day HIS bene-
diction upon the world g climates, and
they are changing, and will keep on
changing until the atmosphere shall be
commingling of October and June. Bene-
diction upon the deserts till they whiten
with lily, and blush with rose and yellow
with cowslIp and emerald with grass.
Beuediclion upon governments till they
become more just and humane. Bene-
diction upon nations till they kneel IN
prayer. Benediction upon the whole
earth until every mountain is an Olivet
81 LII n,Is