The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1893-06-22
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.
''Oh, what comfort there is in this
subject for people who are called nerv-
Gus. Of course it is misapplied word
in that case, but use it in the ordinary
parlance. After twelve years of suf-
fering, oh, what nervous depression she
must have had. You all know that
good deal of medicine taken, if
it does not cure, leaves the system ex-
hausted, and in the Bible in so many
words she had suffered many things of
many physicians, and was nothing bet
tered, but rather grew worse" She
| was as nervous as nervous could be.
She knew all about insomnia and about
the awful apprehension of something
| going to happen, and irrita bility about
little things that in health would not
have perturbed her. l warrant you it
was not a straight stroke she gave to
the garment of Christ, but trembling
forearm, and an uncertain motion of
the hand, and a 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 com
ing to the Lord Jesus Christ, / say she
is making the way for all nervous peo-
pie. Nervous people do not get much
sympathy. If a man breaks his arm
everybody is sorry, and they talk about
it all up and down the street. If a
woman has an eye put out by accident,
they say: That's dreadful thing"
Everybody is asking about her con-
valescene. But when a person is suf-
fering under the ailment of which l
am now speaking, they say: ''Oh,
that's nothing, she's a little nervous,
that's all" putting slight upon the
most agonizing of suffering.
Now, l have a new prescription to
give you'll do not ask you to discard
human medicament l believe in it.
When the slightest thing occurs in the
way OF sickness in my household we
always run for the doctor. do not
want to despise medicine. If you can
not sleep nights do not despise bro
mide of potassium. If you have
nervous paroxysm do not despise
morphine. If you want to strengthen
up your system do not despise
quinine as a tonic. Use all right and
and proper medicines But want you
to bring your insomnia, and bring your
irrita bility, and bring all your weak
nesses, and with them touch Christ.
Touch Him not only on the hem of His
garments, but touch Him on the shout
der where He carries our burden, touch
Him on the head where He remembers
all our sorrows, touch Him on the
heart, the center of all His sympathies.
Oh, yes, Paul was right when he said:
1--WE have not a high priest who can
not be touched"
The factis, Christ Himself is nervous.
All those nights out of doors in mala-
rial disticts where an Englishman or
an American dies if he goes at certain
seasons. Sleeping out of doors SO many
nights as Christ did, and so hungry,
and His feet wet with the wash of the
sea and the wilderness tramp and the
persecution and the outrage must have
broken down His nervous system-a
fact proved by the statement that He
lived SO short time on the cross.
That is lingering death, ordinarily,
and many a sufferer on the cross has
writhed in pain twenty-four hours,
forty-eight hours. Christ lived only
six. Why? He was exhausted before
He mounted the bloody tree. Oh it is
a WORKOUT Christ, sympathetic with
all people worn out.
st. 700 of Kermartin one morning
went out and saw beggar asleep on
his doorstep. The beggar had been all
night in the cold. The next night St.
700 compelled this beggar to come up
in the house and sleep in the saints
bed, while st. 700 passed the night on
the doorstep IN the cold. Somebody
asked him why that eccentricity
He replied; ut isn't an eccen-
tricity. l want to know how the poor
suffer; want to know their agonies
that l may sympathize with them, and,
therefore, | selpt on this cold step last
night" This is the way Christ knows
SO much about our sorrows. He slept
on the cold doorstep of an inhospitable
, world that would not let Him in. He
is sympathetic now with all the suffer
ing and all the tired and all the per-
picked. Oh, why do you not go and
touch Him?
You utter your voice in a mountain
pass and there come back ten echoes,
twenty echoes, thirty echoes perhaps,
weird echoes. Every voice of PRAYER,
every ascription of praise, every groan
of distress, has Divine respopse and
celestial reverberation, and all the gal
leries of Heaven are filled with sympa-
thetic echoes, and throngs of minister
ing angels echo, and the temples of the
redeemed echo, and the hearts of God
! the Father, God the Son and God the
Holy Ghost echo and re-echo
preach a Christ so near you can
touch Him-touch Him with your guilt
and get pardon-touch Him with your
trouble and get comfort-touch Him
with your bondage and get manumis-
sion. You have seen a man take hold
of an electric chain. A man can with
one hand take one end of the chain and