The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-08-21

oSe""SSA SA4S1S 6&aAt' CID JtAiSh do YOU SttiA
think it.
SIT is Christ that died" Why, then,
bring up to us the sins Of our past life?
What have we to do with those obsolete
thingss You know how hard it is for a
wrecker to bring up anything that is lost
near the shore of the sea, but suppose
something be lost half way between
Liverpool and New York. 1t cannot bs
found; it cannot be fetched up. "Now,"
says God, "your sins have been cast into
the depths OF the sea-" Mid-Atlantic! All
the machinery ever fashioned in foun-
dries Of darkness and launched from the
doors Of eternal death, working for TO-
600 years, cannot bring up one of our
sins forgiven and forgotten and sunken
into the depths Of the sea. When sin
is pardoned, it is gone. 1t is gone out Of
the books; it is gone out Of the memory;
it is gone out of existence. ''Their sins
and their iniquities will / remember no
more"
THE SUBLIME TRAGEDY.
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 cur
tain of the right falling at midnoon was
the drop scene. the thunder of falling
rocks the orchestra, angels in the gal
leries and devils in the pit the spectators,
the tragedy orucifxion. III is Christ
that died." Oh, triumphant thought!
II you go through the picture gal
leries Of Versailles, you will find a great
change there. I said to a friend who
had been through those galleries, care
they as they were before the French
WARP and was told there was a great
change there; that all that multitude of
pictures which represented Napoleonic
triu1nphs had been taken away, and in
the frames were other pictures repre-
sentative of Germanic success and VIC
tory. Oh, that all the scenes of satanic
triumph in our world might be blotted
out, and that the whole world might be
a picture gallery representing the tri-
umphant Jesus! Down with the mon
archy of transgression! Up with the
monarchy Of our Kingi Haili Jesus,
hall
But I must give you the second cause
of Paul's exhilaration. L Christ had
staid in that grave, we never would
have gotten out of it. The grave would
have been 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 scaHold. do not
wonder that the ancients tried by en-
balmment of the body to resist the dis
solution of death.
The grave is the darkest, deepest,
ghastliest chasm that was ever opened
if there be no light from the resurrec-
ton throne streaming into it, but Christ
staid in the tomb all Friday night and
all Saturday, all Saturday night and a
part of Sunday morning. He staid SO
long in the tomb that he might fit it for
us when we go there. He tarried two
whole nights in the grave, SO that he's;
how important it was to have plenty of
light, and he has flooded it with his own
glory.
THE RESURRECTION.
It 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 a 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, 0 Jesus, from the
darkness into the sunlight! Come forth
and breathe the perfumeof Joseph's gar
den.
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 lind
1t is a 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 last
one has stepped out into the light, and |
am bewildered. and cannot understand
the scene Until I see Christ wave his
hand over the advancing procession from
the rock and hear him cry: Il am the
resurrection and the life. He who be-
lievetll in me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live" And then notice that
the long dirge of the worlds woe sud
denly stops at the archangelic shout of
"Come forth!''
Oh, my friends, if Christ had not bro
ken out of The grave you and l would
never come out of it! It would have
been another case Of Charlotte Corday
attempting to Stay tyrant, herself slain.
It would have been another case of John
Brown attempting to free the slaves,
himself hung. ISwould have been Death
and Christ in a grapple and Death the
victor. The black flag would have float
ed on all the graves and mausoleums of
the dead, and he'll would have conquered
the forces Of heaven and captured the
ramparts of God, and satan would have