The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1893-10-07


ing for ten thousand years, can not
bring up one of our sins forgiven and
forgotten and sunken into the depths
of the sea. When sin is pardoned it
is rone.-it is gone out of the books, 1T
is gone out of the memory. it is gone
out of existence. Their sins and their
iniquities will remember no more.
From other tragedies men have come
away exhausted and nervous and sleep
less: but there is one tragedy that
soothes and Gains and saves. Calvary
was the stage on which it was enacted,
the curtain of the night falling at mid
noon was the drop scene, the thunder
of falling rocks the orchestra,
angels in the galleries and devils
in the pit the spectators, the
tragedy a crucifxion. 1T is Christ
that died. Oh, triumphant thought!
If you go through the picture gal
leries of Versailles you will find great
change there. i said to a friend who
had been through those galleries: Are
they as they were before the french
WARP" and was told there was great
change there; that all that multitude
of pictures which represented Napo-
leonic triumphs had been taken away,
and in the frames were other pictures
representative of Germanic success and
victory. Oh, that all the scenes OF oa-
tanic triumph in our world might DE
blotted out, and that the whole world
might be picture gallery represent
ing the triumphant Jesus. Down with
the monarchy of transgression! Up
with the monarchy of our King! HALL
Jesus, hail.
But must give you the second cause
of Paul's exhilaratioD. If Christ had
staid in that grave we never
would have gotten out OF 1T.
The grave would have been as
dark and dismal as the con-
ciergerie during the Reign of Terror,
where the carts came up only to take
the victims out to the scaffold. do
not wonder that the ancients tried by
embalmment' of the body to resist the
dissolution of death.
The grave is the darkest. deepest,
ghastliest chasm that was ever opened
if there be no light from the rcsurrec-
ton throne streaming into it; but
Christ staid in the tomb all Friday
night and all Saturday. all Sat-
urday night and part of Sunday morn
ing. He staid so long in the tomb that
He might fit 1t for us when we go there.
He tarried two whole nights in the
grave, so that He saw how important it
was to have plenty of light, and He
has flooded it with His own glory.
1t is early Sunday morning, and we
start up to find the grave of Christ
We find the morning sun gliding the
dew, and the shrubs are sweet as the
foot brushes them. What beautiful
place to be buried in! Wonder they
did not treat Christ as well when He
was alive as they do now that He is
dead. Give the military salute to the
soldiers who stand guarding the dead.
| But bark to the crash. An earthquake.
The soldiers fall back as though they
were dead, and the stone at the door of
Christ's tomb spins down the hill, flung
by the arm of an angel. Come forth,
o Jesus! from the darkness into the
sunlight. Come forth, and breathe the
perfume of Joseph's garden.
Christ comes forth radiant. and as He
| steps out of the excavation of the rock
| look down into the excavation. and
| in the distance / see others coming
hand-in-hand, and troop after troop,
and find it is long procession of the
precious dead. Among them are our
own loved ones-father, mother,
brother, sister, companion, children,
coming up out of the excavation of the
rock until the las t One has stepped out
| into the light, and / am bewildered,
and l can not understand the scene
until | see Christ wave His hand over
the advancing procession from the
rock, and hear Him cry: II am the
resurrection and the life; he who be-
lieveth in Ne, though he were dead,
yet shall he live" And then l notice
that the long dirge of the worlds woe
suddenly stops at the archangelic shout
of ''Come forth!'
Oh! my friend, if Christ had not
broken out of the grave you and /
would never come out of it. 1t would
have been another case of Charlotte
Corday attempting to slay tryant,
herself slain. 1t would have been an
other case of John Brown attempting
to free the slaves, himself hung. 1t
would have been Death and Christ in a
grapple, and Death the victor. The
black flag would have fioated on all
graves and mausoleums of the dead,
and hell would have conquered the
forces of Heaven and captured the
ramparts of God, and Satan would have
come to coronation in the palaces OF
Heaven, and it would have been devils
on the throne and sons of God in the
dungeon.
No! mol no! When that stone was
rolled from the door of Christ's grave
it was hurled with such force that il
crashed in all the grave-doors of Chris
tendon, and now the tomb is only a
bower where Gods children take a
sicsta, an afternoon nap, to wake up in
mighty invigoration. Christ is risen.
Hang that lamp among all the tomb'
of my dead. Hang it over my own rest
ing-place. Christ's suffering is ended
His work is done. The darkest Friday
afternoon of the worlds history be
comes the brightest Sunday morning
of it's resurrection joy. The Good Fri
day of bitter memories becomes the
Easter of glorious transformation anc
resurrection.
We mourning saints dry every tear