The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-22

have gone out through the sock you knit
for the barefoot destitute, that strength
may so out through the mantle hung up
IN some closet after YOU are dead. 80
crippled child sat every morning on her
fathers front step so that when the kind
Christian 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 mucn and mace
her so happy al 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 LIE OF
those who stayl But mark you, the prlu-
ciple ] evolve from this subject. No ad-
dition of health to others unless there be
a subtraction of strength from ourselves.
He felt that strength had gone out of him.
Notice also in this subject Christ sen
sitive to human touch. We talk about
God on vast scale so much we hardly
appreciate his accessibility, 600 IN mag
nitudC rather than God in miuutlP, God
in the infinite rather than God in the IN
finitesimal; but here in my text we have
a God arrested by a suffering touch.
When in the sham trial OF Christ they
struck him on the cheek we can realize
how that check tingled with pain. When
under the ScOurglng the rod struck the
shoulders and back of Christ, we can
realize how he must have Wrlthcd under
the decorations. But here there is a 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 mez'
We talk about sensitive people, but
Christ was the impersOnatiOn of all sensi-
tiveness. The slightest stroke of the
smallest fingerof human disability makes
all the nerves of his head and heart and
hand and feet vibrate 1t is not stolid
Christ, not phlegmatic Christ, not
preoccupied Christ, not hard Christ, not
an iron-cased Christ, but an eXquisitely
sensitive Christ that my text unveils. All
the things that touch us touch him. II by
the hand of prayer we make the connect
ing line between him and ourselves com
plete. Mark you. this invalid 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
sympathies of an ardent and glowing and
responsive nature.
You know that in telegraphy there are
two currents of electricity. So when you
put out your hand of prayer to Christ
there are two currents-a current of sOr-
row rolling up from your heart to Christ,
and current Of cOmmiSeratiOn rolling
from the heart of Christ to you. Two
currents O. why do you go unhelped2
Why do you go wondering about this and
wondering about thatl Why do you not
touch him2
Are you sick? do not think you are
any worse off than this invalid of the text.
Have you had a long struggle? / do not
think 1t has been more than twelve years.
Is your case hopcless2 So was this of
which my text is the diagnosis and prog
nosis. 80, - you say "there are so many
things between me and God" There was
whole mob between this invalid and
Christ. She pressed through and / guess
you can press through.
Is your trouble home troubled Christ
shows himself especially sympathetic
with questions of dOmesticity, as when at
the wedding in Cana he alleviated a
hoUseleeper's prediCament, as when tears
rushed forth at the broken home of Mary
and Martha and Lazarus. Men are some
times ashamed to weep. There are men
who ii 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 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 of tears opened by
the two words of the evangelist: Jesus
weptn Behold Christ on the only day of
his carly triumph marching on Jerusalem,
the giittering dOmes Obliterated by the
binding rain of tears in his eyes and on
his cheek; for when he beheld the city he
wept over ii. o, man of the many trials,
o, woman of the heartbreak why do YOU
not touch him2
80, says some one, ''Christ don't care
Tor 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
overthrow, and there are so many worse
cases of trouble than mine he doesn't care
about me, and his face is turned the other
so no 70, l, -,
valid of the text He was on his way to
effect cure which was famous and pop
ular and understanding. But the con
text says, He turned him about" If he
was facing to the north he turned to the
south; if he was facing to the east he
turned to the west. What turned him
abOut2 The Bible says he has no shadow
of turning. He rides on in his chariot
through the eternities. He marches on
crushing scepters as though they were
the cracking alders on a brooks bank,
and tossing thrones on either side of him
without stopping to look which way they
fall. From everlasting to everlasting.
s'He turned him about" He whom all
the allied armies of hell cannot stop a
minute or divert an inch, by the wan sick.
nerveless finger of human suffering turned
clear about
o, what comfort there is in this sub
secttor people who are called nervous.
VI course IL Is a mlSapplled word in that
case, but use it in the ordinary parlance.
After twelve years of suffering, oh. what
nervous depression she must have had
You all know that a good deal of medi-
cine taken if it does not cure leaves the
system exhausted, and in the Bible in so
many words she chad suffered MANY
things of many physicians, and was
nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. y
she was as nervous as nervous could be.
She knew all about insomnia and about
the awful apprehension of something
going to happen, and irritability about
little things that in health would not
have perturbed her. / warrant YOU it
was not a straight stroke she gave to the
garment of Christ, but a trembling fore
arm, and an uncertain motion Of the hand
and 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, / say she is
making the way for all nervous people.
Nervous people do not get much sym
pathy. If a man breaks his arm every
body is sorry, and they talk about it all
up and down the street If woman has
an eye put out by accident, they say.
"That's a dreadful thing" Everybody
Is asking about her c9nva lpecoOra P17+