Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-06-10


prairie home, and the cabin qualSed
with the shout over the lost one found.
How suggestive of the fact thet once
we were lost in the open fields, or
among the mountain crags, Gods
wandering children, and he found
us, dying in the tempest, and wrapped
us in the mantle of his love and fetched
| rs homo, gladness and congratulation
bidding us welcome. The fact is tina
The world docs not know God. or they
would all flock TO him. Through their
own blindness, or the fault of some
rough preaching that has got abroad
| in the centuries, many men and
women have an idea that Goa is ty-
rant, and oppressor, an autocrat, a
Mana Sahib, an Omnipotent Herod An
| Gpat. 1t is a libel against the AL
mighty; it is SANDER against the
| heavens; it is defamation of the in
times the word mercy" single or
compounded with other words
counted in my bible 473 times the
word Glove" single or compounded
with other words. Then, I got tired
counting. Perhaps you might count
more, being better at figures But the
Hebrew and the Greek and the English
languages have been taxed till they
cannot pay any more tribute to
the love and mercy and kind
ness and grace and charity and
tenderness and friendship and benevo-
lence and sympathy and bounteousness
and fatherliness and motherliness and
patience and pardon of our God. There
are certain names so magnetic that
their pronunciation thrills all who hear
it. Such is the name of the Italian
soldier and lberator, Garibaldi.
Marching with his troops, he met a
shepherd who was in great distress
! because he had lost lamb. Carl
baldi said to his troops: Let US help
this poor shepherd find his lamb"
And so, with lanterns and torches, they
explored the mountains, but did not
| find the lamb, and after an unsuocess-
full search late at night they went
to their encampment. The next morn
ing Garibaldi was found asleep far
on into the day, and they Weakened
him for some purpose and found that
he had not given up the search when
the soldiers did, but had kept on still
further into the night and had found
it, and he pulled down the blankets
from his couch and there lay the lamb,
which Garibaldi ordered Immediately
taken to its owner. So the comman-
der of the hosts of heaven turned aside
from his glorious and victorious march
through the centuries of heaven, and
said: Il will go and recover that lost
world, and that race of whom Adam
was the progenitor, and let all
who will accompany me-" And
through the night they came, but / do
not see that the angelic escort came
any further than the clouds, but their
most illustrious leader came all the
way down, and by the time his crrand
is done our little world, our wandering
and lost world, our world feecy with
the light, will be found in the bosom
of the Great Shepherd, and, then, all
heaven will take up the cantata and
sing, THE lost sheep found" So
set open the wide gate of my text, in
viting you all TO come into the mercy
and pardon of God; yea, still further,
into the ruins of the place
where once was kept the knowledge OF
your iniquities. The place has been
torn down and the records destroyed.
and you will find the ruins more dilapi-
dated and broken and PROSTATE than
the ruins of Melrose or Kenilworth,
| g., L. .ta1,
up some fragment of a sculptured stone
or you can see the curve of some
broken arch, but after your repent.
ance and your forgiveness, you cannot
find in all the memory of God q
fragment of all your pardoned
sins SO large as a needles point
"Their sins and their iniquities
will remember no more" And none
of that will surprise you If you will
climb to the top Of bluff back OF
Jerusalem lit took us only Eve or ten
minutes 10 climb it), and see wha'
went on when the plateau of limestone
was shaken by paroxysm that set the
rocks. which had been upright aslant
and on the trembling crosspieces of the
split lumber hung the quivering form
of him whose life was thrust out by
metallic points of cruelty that siokened
the MONDAY sun till it tainted and fell
back on the black lounge of the Judear
midnight.
Six different kinds of sounds were
heard on that night which was inter.
jected into the daylight of Christ's as.
sassination; the neighing of the war
horses, for some of the soldiers were
in the saddle, was one sound: the bang
of the hammers was second sound:
the jeer of malignants was a third
sound: the weeping of friends and
coadjutors was fourth sound: the
plash of blood on the rocks was fifth
sound: the groan of the expiring Lord
was sixth sound. And they all com.
mingled into one sadness. Over place
in Russia where wolves were pursuing
a load of travellers, and TO save them
a servant sprang from the sled ihte
the mouths of the wild beasts,
and was devoured, and thereby
the other lives were saved, are inscribed
the words, Greater love hath no man
than this, that man lay down his life