The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-06-02

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 60 out through the mantle hung
up in some closet after you are dead.
So a crippled chilli 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 evolve from this
subject. No addition of health to 9TH
ers unless there be 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
nutee, God in the infinite rather than
God in the infnitesimal; but here in my
text we have God arrested by a 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:
s'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 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
selves complete. Mark you, this inva-
lid of the text might have walked
through that crowd all day and cried
about her suffering and norelief 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. So
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 a current of COM
miseration rolling from the heart of
Christ to you. Two currents. Oh, why
do you go unhelped? Why do you go
wondering about this and wondering
about that? Why do you not touch
Him?
Are you sick? / do not think you are
any worse off than this invalid of the
text. Have you had long struggled.
do not think it has been more than
twelve years. Is your case hopeless?
So was this of which my text is the
diagnosis and prognosis. stOh," 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 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 the
broken home of Mary and Martha and
Lazarus. Men are sometimes ashamed
to weep. There are men who if 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 great heart. / am
afraid of 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 weptT'' Behold
Christ on the only day of His early
triumph marching on Jerusalem, the
glittering domes obliterated by the
binding rain of tears in His eyes and
on His cheek; for when He beheld the
city He wept over it. o man of the
many trials, o woman of the heart
break, why do you not touch Him?
''Oh," says some one, ''Christ don't
care for me. Christ is looking the 9TH
err way. Christ has the vast affairs of
His kingdom to look after. He has the
armies of sin to overcome, and there
are so many worse cases of trouble than
mine He doesn't care about me, and
His face is turned the other way" So
His back was turned to this invalid
of the text. He was on His way
to effect cure which was famous and
popular and understanding. But the
context 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 about? The Bible says He
has no shadow of turning. He rides
on in His chariot through the eterni-
ties. He marches on crushing scepters
as though they were the cracking al
ders on a brooks bank, and tossing
thrones on either side of Him without
stopping 60 look which way they fall.
From everlasting to everlasting. HE
turned Him about" He whom all the
allied armies of hell can not stop min
ute or divert an inch, by the wan, sick.
nerveless finger of human suffering
turned clear about.