Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-05-12

and aJtrucJlOn, Wnlle OUTSIDE SO com
pletely unfortunate. Mexican cactus
all the time.
Said placid elder to Christian
minister, doctor, you would do bet
tor to control your temper" "Ahw
said the minister to the placid elder,
81 control more temper in five minutes
than you do in five years. These peo-
pie, gifted men, who have great eXas-
| peraion of manner, and seem to be
very different from what they should
| be, really have in their souls that
which commends them TO the Lord
Mexican cactus ali the time. So a man
said TO me years ago. "Do you think !
ought to become member of the
churcn-I nave such vic lent temper?
Yesterday l was crossing Jersey
City Ferry. It was very early in the
morning and ] saw a milkman putting
large quantity OF water into his can
and, | said, That is enough SIR and
he got off the cart and insulted me,
and / Knocked him down. Well "sald
/ he, do YOU think / could ever become
Christian" That man had in his
soul the grace of the Lord Jesus, but
outside he was full of thorns and full
of brambles, and full of exasperations;
/ but he could not hear the story of
| the tears roll down his cheek. There
was loneliness within, burt roughness
outside. Mexican cactus all the time.
But L remember in boyhood that we
had in our fathers garden what we
called the Giant of Battle, peculiar
rose, very red and very fiery. Sugges-
/ tive flower, il was called the Giant of
Battle. And so in the garden of the
! Lord we find that kind of flower-the
| Pauls and martin Luthers, the
! Nycliffes, the John Knoxes-Giants of
! Battle. What in other men is a spark,
in them is conhagratiou; when they
pray, their prayers take fire. When
they suffer they sweat great drops of
flood: when they preach it is pente-
cost; when they fight it is - Thermo-
pyl@; when they die it is martyrdom,
Giants of Battle. You say, "Nhy
have we not more of them in the
Church OF Christ at this tme?" ] an
swer your question by asking another,
why have were not more Iromwells
and HuElboldtS in the world?" God
wants only few Giants of Battle,
they do their work. and they do it
well
But find also in the Church of God
plant that shall call the snowdrop.
Very beautiful but cold; it is very
pure, pure as the snowdrop, beautiful
as the snowdrop, and as cold as the
snowdrop, No special Sympathy.
/ 1 hat kind of man never loses his pa
thence; he never weeps, he never flashes
with anger, he never utters a rash
word Always cold. always precise,
| always passive, beautiful snowdrop,
/ but don't like him; | would rather
7 Of Iat 10
! sEowdrops.
Give me a man who may make some
mistakes in his ardor for the Lords
service, rather than that kind of
nature which spends its whole life
doing but one thing, and that is keep
ing equilibrium There are snowdrops
3 in all churches--men without any
/ sympathy. Very good; they are in the
garden of the Lord, therefore | know
they ought to be there; but always
/ snowdrops.
You have seen in some places, per-
/ haps, centVry plant. | do not sup
/ pose there is person in this house
B who has ever seen more than one cen
/ tury plant in full bloom, and when you
see the century plant your emotions
are stirred. You look at it and say,
/ This flower has been gathering up its
beauty for whole century, and il will
not bloom again for another hundred
years" Well, / have to tell you that
in this garden of the Church, spoken of
in my text, there is a century plant
1t has gathered UP its bloom from
all the ages of eternity, and
nineteen centuries ago it put forth
its glory. 1t is not only a
century plant, but passion-hower
a., g ..
son flower, blood at the root, and
blood on the leaves, the passion-hower
/ of Jesus, the century plant of eternity.
/ Come, o winds from the north, and
winds from the south, and winds from
! the west, and scatter the perfume of
this flower through all nations.
His worth if al the nations knew,
Sure the whole earth would love him too.
Thou, the Christ of all the ages, hast
garments smelling of myrrh, and aloes,
and cassia, out of the ivory palaces.
go further, and say the church of
Christ is appropriately compared TO
garden because of its thorough irriga-
tion. There can be no luxuriant gar
den without plenty of water. | saw
garden in the midst of the desert, amid
the Rocky Mountains. l said, How is
it possible you have SO many flowers,
SO mucn rlcn 1rulJ In a desert 1Or miles
around? l suppose some of you have
seen those gardens. Well, they told
me they had aqueducts and pipes
reaching up the hills, and the SHOWS
melted on the Sierra Nevada and the
Rocky Mountains, and then poured
down in water to those aquedacts, and
it kept the fields IN great luxuriance.
And l thought to myself-how Xix ethe
garden of Christ! All around it the
barrenness of sin and the barrenness
of the world, but our eyes are unto the
hills, from whence cometh our help.
There is n river the streams whereof
shall make glad the city of our God,
the fountain of gardens and streams
from Lebanon. Water 10 slack the
thirst water to refresh the fainting,
water to wash { he unclean, water to
toss up in fountains under the sun of
Righteousness, until you can see the
rainbow around the throne.
| wandered in garden Of Brazilian
cashew-nut, aud / saw the luxuriance
of those gardens were helped 10y the
abundant supply of water. L came to
it on day when strangers were not
l.. II -