Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-10-13
|. VISIT TO CALVARY.

There were a thousand things we
wanted to see that third day of Deem
Der, and our dragoman proposed this
and that and the other journey, but
said: First of all show us Calvary.
Something might happen if we went
elsewhere, and sickness or accident
might hinder us seeing the sacred
mount. If we see nothing else, we
must see that and see it this morning"
Some of us in carriage and some on
mule back, we were soon on the way
to the most sacred spot that the world
has ever seen or ever will see. Coming
to the base of the hill we first went
inside the skull of rocks. 1t is called
Jeremiah's grotto, for there the prophet
wrote his book of Lamentations The
grottO is thirty-five feet high, and its
top and sides are malachite, green,
brown, black, white, red and gray.
Coming forth from those pictured
subterraneous passages we begin to
climb the steep sides OF Calvary. AS we
go up we see cracks and crevices in the
rocks, which / think were made by the
commissions of nature when Jesus died.
On the hill lay limestone rock, white,
but tinged with crimson, the white so
suggestive of purity and the crimson of
sacrifice that | said That stone would
be beautifully appropriate for memo
rial wall in my church, now building in
America; and the stone now being
brought on cameTs back from Sinai
across the desert, when put under it,
how significant of the law and the
gospel! And these lips Of stone will
continue to speak of justice and mercy
long after all our living lips have ut
tered their last message" So l rolled
it down the hill and transported it.
When that day comes for which
many of you have prayed-the dedica-
ton of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, the
third immense structure we have reared
in this city, and that makes it some
what difficult, being the third struct-
ure, a work such as no other church
was ever called on to undertake-we
invite you in the main entrance of that
building to look upon a memorial wall
containing the most suggestive and sol
emn and tremendous antiquities ever
brought together-this, rent with the
earthquake at the giving of the law at
Sinai. the other rent at the crucifixion
on Calvary.
OVERCOME BY CHRIST'S SACRIFICE.
1t is impossible for you to realize
what our emotions were as we gath
cred, a group of men and women, all
saved by the blood of the Lamb, on a
bluff of Calvary, Just wide enough to
contain three crosses. | said TO my
family and friends, II think here Is
where stood the cross of the impenltent
burglar. and there the cross OF the ms
creant, and here between, I think, stood
the cross on which all our hopes de
pend" As I opened the nineteenth
chapter of John to read a chill olast
struck the hill and a cloud lowered,
the natural solemnity impresslng the
spiritual solemnity. [ read little, but
broke down. l defy any emotional
Christian man sitting upon Golgotha to
read aloud and with unbroken voice,
or with any voice at all, the Whoie OF
that account in Luke and Johm OF
which these sentences are fragment
''They took Jesus and led him away,
and he, bearing his cross, went forth
into place called the place of a skull,
where they crucified him and two oth-
ers with him, on either side one, and
Jesus in the midst; - Behold thy moth
erln II thirst ''This day shalt thou
be with me in Paradise" Father, for
give them, they know not what they
do" eff it be possible, let this cup
pass from me-" What signs, what sobs,
what tears, what tempests of sorrow,
what surging oceans of agony in those
utterancesl
While we sat there the whole scene