The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1893-06-22

diI Ills nervous tHClSy WI uhS Ooc
by active fervice in church or Sabbath
school, or city evangelization, has imi-
tated Christ. A mother who robs her
self of sleep in behalf of a sick cradle,
a wife who bears up cheerfully under
domestic misfortune that she may en-
courage her husband in the combat
against disaster, woman who by hard
saving and earnest prayer and good
counsel, wisely given, and many years
devoted to rearing her family for God
and usefulness and Heaven, and who
has nothing to show for it but prema-
ture gray hairs and a profusion OF
deep wrinkles, is like Christ, and
strength has gone out of her. That
strength or virtue may have gone out
through garment she has made for
the home; that strength may have gone
out through the sock that you knit for
the barefoot destitute; that strength
may go out through the mantle hung
up in some closet after you are dead.
So a crippled child sat on her fathers
front step so that when the kind Chris
tan teacher passed by to school she
might take hold of her dress and let
the dress slide through her pale fingers.
She said it helped her pain so much and
made her SO happy all the day. Aye,
have we not in all our dwelling garments
of the departed, a touch of which
thrills us through and through, the life
of those who are gone thrilling through
the life of those who stay? But mark
you, the principle l evolve from this
subject. No addition Df health to 9th
ers unless there be a subtraction of
strength from ourselves. He felt that
strength had gone out of Him.
Notice also in this subject a Christ
sensitive to human touch. We talk
about God on vast scale so much we
hardly appreciate His accessibility, God
in magnitude rather than God in mi
nut;ee, God in the infinite rather than
God in the infinitesimal; but here in my
text we have a God arrested by suf-
fering touch. When in the sham trial
of Christ they struck Him on the
cheek, we can realize how that cheek
tingled with pain. When under the
scourging the rod struck the shoulders
and back of Christ, we can realize how
| He must have writhed under the LAGER
atoms But here there is sick and
nerveless finger that just touches the
long threads of the blue fringe of His
coat, and He looks around and says:
"Who touched me?'
We talk about sensitive people, but
! Christ was the impersonation of all
sensitiveness. The slightest stroke OF
the smallest finger of human disability
makes all the nerves of His head and
heart and hand and feet vibrate. 1t is
not a stolid Christ, not a phlegmatic
| Christ. not hard Christ not an iron
cased Christ, but an exquisitely sensl-
tive Christ that my text unveils. All
things that touch us touch Him, if by
the hand of prayer we make the con-
Meeting line between Him and our
lid of the text might have walked
through that crowd all day and cried
about her suffering and no relief would
have come if she had not touched Him.
When, in your prayer, you lay your
hand on Christ you touch all the sym
pathies of an ardent and glowing and
responsive nature.
You know that in telegraphy there
are two currents of electricity. Sc
when you put out your hand of prayer
to Christ there are two currents-a cur
rent of sorrow rolling up from your
heart to Christ, and current of com
miseration rolling from the heart OF
Christ TO you. Two currents. Oh, why
do you 60 unhelped? Why do you GO
wondering about this and wondering
about that? Why do you not touch
Him?
Are you sick? l do not think you arc
any worse off than this invalid of the
text. Have you had a long STRUGGLED
l do not think it has been more thar
twelve years. Is your case hopeless:
So was this of which my text is the
diagnosis and prognosis. "Oh," yor
say, there are so many things between
me and God" There was whole moi
between this invalid and Christ. She
pressed through, and I guess you car
press through.
Is your trouble a home trouble
Christ showed Himself especially sym
pathetic with questions of domesticity
as when at the wedding in Cana He
alleviated housekeeper's predicament
as when tears rushed forth at tn.
broken home of Mary and Martha ant
Lazarus. Men are sometimes ASHAMED
to weep. There are men who if tn,
tears start will conceal them. The,
think it is unmanly to cry. They d,
not seem to understand it is manlines
and evidence of a great heart. | an
afraid of a man 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 O
tears opened by the two words of tn,
evangelist: Jesus wept!'' Behold
Christ on the only day of His earl.
triumph marching on Jerusalem, tn,
glittering domes obliterated by tn,
binding rain of tears in His eyes ant
on His cheek; for when He beheld tn,
city He wept over it. Oman of tn,
many trials, o woman of the heart
break, why do you not touch Him?
"Oh," says some one, Christ dom
care for me. Christ is looking the 9th
er way. Christ has the vast affairs O