Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-03-18


ant sail. How long the boat is coming!
Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Christ
the priest advances ahead, and the dy-
ing Christian goes over dry-shod on
coral beds, and flowers of heaven, and
paths Of pearl.
Oh. could we make our doubts remove
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And view the Canaan that we love
With unbecloudcd ewes.
Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape DER
Not Jordan's stream nor deaths cold flood,
Could fright us from the shore.
Again, this Jordanic passage teaches
me the completeness of everything that
God does. When God put an invisible
dam across Jordon, and it was halted,
it would have been natural, you would
have supposed. for the water to have
overlooked the region all about, and
that great devastation would have taken
place. But when God put n dam in
front of the river he put dam on the
other side of the river, so that, accord
ing to the text, the water halted and
reared up and stood there, and not
overlooking the surrounding country.
Oh, the completeness of everything
that God does.
One would have thought that, il the
waters of Jordan had dropped until
they were only two or three feet deep,
the Israelites might have marched
through it, and have come up on the
other bank with their clothes saturated
and their garments like those of men
coming ashore from shipwreck, and
that would have been as wonderful a
deliverance; but God does something
better than that. When the priests
feet touched the waters of Jordan and
they were drawn off they might have
thought there would have been bed
of mud and slime through which the
army should pass and yet here. in an
instant. Immediately, God provides n
path through the depths of Jordan: it
is so dry the passengers do not even
get their feet damp. Oh, the COM
plcteness of everything that God does
If God makes Bible, it is complete
Bible. Standing amid the dreadful and
delightful truths, you seem to be in the
midst of an orchestra where the wall
ings over sins, and the rejoicings over
pardon, and the martial strains of vic
tory make the chorus like an anthem of
eternity. This book seems to you the
ocean of truth. on every wave of which
Christ walks sometimes in the darkness
of prophecy, again in the splendors
with which he walks on Galilee In
this book. apostle answers to prophet,
Paul TO Isaiah. Revelation to Genesis
glorious light, turning midnight sor
row into the midnoon joy. dispensing
every fog. hushing every tempest
Take this book: it is the kiss of God on
the soul of lost man. Perfect Bible,
complete Bible! No man has ever pro-
posed any Improvement
God provided Saviour; He is a COM
plete Saviour-God-man-- and
humanity united in the same person.
He set up the starry pillars of the uni
verse and the towers of light. He
planted the cedars and the heavenly
Lebanon. He struck out of the rock
the rivers of life. singing under the
trees. singing under the thrones. He
quarried the sardonyx and crystal and
the topaz of the heavenly wall. He
put down the jasper for the foundation,
and heaped up the amethyst for the
capital, and swung the twelve gates
which are twelve pearls In one in
slant He thought out universe; and
yet He become child, crying for His
mother. feeNng along the sides of the
manager, learning to walk. Omnipo-
tence sheathed in the muscle and flesh
of a child's arm; omniscience strung in
the optic nerve of the child's eye; in
finite love beating in child's heart; a
great God appearing in the form of a
child one year old. five years old, fiji
teen years old. While all the heavens
were ascribing to Him glory and honor
and power on earth, men said, who is
this feliow?" While all the heavenly
hosts, with folded wing about their
faces, bowed down before Him, crying,
Holy, holy" on earth they denounced
Him as blasphemer and sot Rocked
in boat on Gennesaret, and yet He it
is that undirked the lightning from the
storm cloud, and dismasted Lebanon of
its forests, and holds the five oceans on
the tip of his finger, as leaf holds the
raindrop.
Again, / learn from this Jordanic
passage that between us and every
Canaan of success and prosperity there
is river that must be passed. "Oh,
how would like some of those grapes
on the other side!" said some of the
Israelites to Joshua ''Well," says
Joshua, ''if you want the grapes why
don't you cross over and get them?'
There is river of difficulty between us
and everything that is worth having;
that which costs nothing is worth moth
ing. God didn't intend this world for
an easy parlor, through which we are
to be drawn in a rocking chair, but we
ora 20 xvn,.lr our paccoUa climb maSts