The Penn's Grove record., 1893-05-26

your hand OF prayer TO CHRIST tnefe are TWO
currents-a current OF sorrow rolling up from
your heart to Christ and q current of com
miseration rolling from the heart of Christ to
you. Two currents. oh, way do you go IN
helped2 Why do o go Wondering about
this and wondering about that3 Why do you
lot touch Him2
worse off than this invalid Of the text. Have
you had a long struggle? 1 do not think it
has been more than II year.. Is your case
hopeless? So was this of which my text is
the diagnosis and pToSnosis. "Oh," you say,
''there are 50 many things between me and
God" There was a whole mob between this
invalid and Christ. She pressed through, and
I guess you can press through.
Is your trouble q home troubled Christ
shows Himself especially sympathetic With
questions of domesticity, as when at the we'd
ding in Cana He alleviated q housekeeper's
predicament. as when tears rushed forth at
the broken dome of Mary and Martha and
Lazarus. Men are sometimes ashamed to
weep. There are men who If the tears start
will conceal them. They think it is unmanly
to cry. They do not seem to understand it is
manliness and evidence OF a great heart. !
am afraid Of a maj who does not know how
to cry. The Christ of the text was not
ashamed to cry over human misfortune. Look
at that deep lake of tears opened by the two
words OF the evangelist "Jesus weptr Be
hold Christ IN the only day Of His early
triumph marching on Jerusalem, the glitter
ing domes obliterated by the binding rain OF
tears in His eyes and on His cheeks, for when
He beheld the city He wept over ii. o man
of the many trials, o woman OF the heart
break, why do you not touch HIM
.soh." SAYS some one, siChrist doesn't care
for me. Christ is looking the other way.
Christ has the vast affairs Of His kingdom to
look after. He has the armies of sin to over
throw, and there are so many worse cases OF
trouble han mine He doesn't care about me,
and His face is turned the other way So
His back was turned to this invalid OF the
text. He was on His way to eject a cure
which was famous and popular and wide re-
sounding. But the context says, 'He turned
Him about" If He was facing to tle north,
He turned to the south il He was facing to
the east, He turned to the west. What
turned Him about? The Bible says He has no
shadow of turning ; He rides on HIS chariot
through the ~eternities. He marches on,
crushing scepters as though they were the
srackling alders on a brooks bank, and toss
ing thrones on either side OF Him without
looking which way the fail. From e~verlast-
ing to everlasting. Gle turned Hin about"
He, whom all the allied armies Of hell can
not stop a minute or divert an inch, by the
wan, sick, nerveless finger OF human suffer
ing turned clear about.
oh, what comfort there Is in SIS subject
for people who are called nervous o. course
it is a ~misapplied word in that case, Dut 1 use
it in the ordinary parlance. After II years
ofsuffering, oh, what nervous depression she
must nave had! You all know that a good
deal of medicine taken If it does not cure
leaves the system exhausted, n in the Bible
in so many words she fshad suffered many
things of many physicians and was nothing
bettered, but rather grew worse. she was
as nervous as nervous could be. She knew
all about insomnia, and about the awful APP
prahanuton ~ unrnafhfno pOin1 fO hannnn
and irritability about little things that in
health would not have perturbed her. l war
rant you 1t was not q straight stroke she gave
to the garment Of Christ, but a trembling
forearm, and an uncertain motion OF the
hand, and a quivering finger with which she
missed the mark toward which she aimed.
She did not touch the garment just where
she expected to touch it.
When l see this nervous woman coming to
the Lord Jesus Christ, l say she is making
the way for all nervous people. Nervous
people do not get much sympathy. If a man
breaks his arm, everybody Is sorry, and they
talk about 1t all up and down the street. II a
woman has an eye put out by accident, they
say ''That's a dreadful thing" Everybody
ls asking about her convalescence. But when
q person is suffering under the ailment Of
which I Am now speaking they say "0h,
that's nothing. She's e little nervous, that's
al" putting a slight upon the most agoniz-
ing OF suffering.
Now, I have a new prescription to give you.
[ do not ask you to discard human medical
ment. I believe in II. When the slightest
thing occurs in the way of sickness in my
household, we always run for the doctor. /
do not want to despise medicine. II you SAN
not sleep nights, do not despise bromide Of
potassium. If you have nervous paroxysm,
do not despise morphine. II you wants to
strengthen up your system, do not despise
~quinine as a tonic. Use all right and proper
medicines. But I want you to bring our
insomnia, and bring your irritability, and
bring all our weaknesses, and with them
touch Christ. Touch Him not only on the
hem of His garments, but touch Him on the
shoulder, where He carries our burden, touch
Him on the head where He remembers all
our sorrows, touch Him on the heart, the
center of all His sympathies. Oh, yes, Paul
was right when he said, 1--WE have not 3 high
priest who canno be touched"
The fact Is Christ Himself Is nervous. All
those nights out of doors in malarial districts,
where an Englishman or an American dies il
he goes at certain seasons. Sleeping out Of
doors so many nights, as Christ did, and so
hungry, and His feet wet with the wash OF
the sea, and the wilderness tramp, and the
persecution, n the outrage must have
broken His nervous system q Tact proved by
the statement that He lived SO short a time
on the cross. That is a lingering death or
dinarily. and many a sufferer On the cross
has writhed in pain "a hours, 4s hours. Christ
lived only six. Why? He was exhausted be-
fore He mounted the bloody tree. Oh, it is
= WORKOUT Christ, sympathetic with all pee-
pie worn out.
A Christian woman went to the Tract
House in New York n asked for tracts for
distribution. TIL first day she was out on
her Christian errand she saw a policeman
taking an intoxicated woman to the station
house. After the woman was discharge ed
f-Nrn a,safnlp Ahfa Hhr.afaan n.a l.,k.;t,,,S,r
saw her coming away all unkempt n un-
lovely. T tract distributor went up, threw
her arms around her neck and kissed her.
The woman said, "0h, my God, why dc you
kiss me?" ''Well," replied the other, II
think Jesus Christ told me to-" "oh, no."
the woman said, don't you kiss me. 1t
breaks my heart. Nobody has kissed me
since my mother died" But that sisterly
kiE brought her to Christ, started her on the
road to heaven The world wants sympathy.
1t Is dying for sympathy, large-hearted
Christian sympathy. There is onnipotence
in the touch.
oh, I am so glad that when wetoueh Christ
Christ touches US! The knu .xles, an 1 the
limbs, n the joints, all falling apart with
that living Death called the leprosy, a man is
brought to Christ. A hundred doctors could
not cure him. The wisest surgery would
stand appalled, before that loathsons pa
tient. What did Christ do? He did not am
puIdbc ~ uiu hol pOuiticc Ite uAu mo- o-lT"
lily. He touched him, and he was we'd. The
mother-in-law Of the Apostle Peter WIS in a
raging scver-brain fever, typhoid fever, OF
what, I do not know. Christ was the pays
clan. He offered no f~ebrifuse lie pres .rineI
no drops He did not put her on pain diet.
He touched her, and she was perfectly welt.
Two blind men come stumbling into room
where Christ is. They are entirely signtless.
Christ did not lift the eyelid 10 see waetler it
was cataract or ophthalmia. He did not put
the men into a dark room for three or Our
weeks. Hetouched them, and they saw every-
thing. A man came to Christ. The drGm Of
his ear had ceased to vibrate, and he had q
suffering tongue. Christ touched TIE ear,
and he heard touched his tongue, and he
~articulated. There is a funeral COMING out
OF that gate-a widow following her only boy
to the grave. Christ nnot stand il. and He
puts His hand on the hearse, and the obse
qnies turn into a resurrection day.
o my brother, I am so glad when we touch
Christ with our sorrows Hetouehes us. When
out of your grief and yexation you put your
hand on Christ, it awakens all human remi-