Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-08-18

cry ever fashioned in foundries of dark
ness, and launched from the doors of
eternal death, working for ten thou
sand years, cannot bring up one of our
sins rgiven and forgotten and sunken
into the depths of the sea. When n
sin is pardoned, it is gone-it 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.
From other tragedies men have come
away exhausted and nervous and
@ ,epless; but there is one tragedy
at soothes and Gains and saves
calvary as the stage on which it was
enacted, the curtain OF the night fall
ing at midnoon was the drop scene
the thunder of falling rocks the
orchestra, angels in the e 'lleries, and
devils in the pit the spectators, the
tragedy a cruciRXion. 1t is Chr st
that died" Oh, triumphant thought!
If you go through the picture gal
leries of Versailles you will find
great change there. | said to friend
who had been through those galleries,
Are they as they were before the
French ware" and | was told there was
a great change there; that all that
VI DltlulGS NhANh
scented Napoleonic triumphs had been
taken away, and in the frames were
other pictures representative of Ger
manic success and victory. Oh, that
all the scenes of satanic triumph in
our world might be blotted out, and
that the whole world might be
picture gallery representing the tri-
umphant Jesus! Down with the mon
archy of iransgression Up with the
monarchy of our king! Hail. Jesus
hail!
But must give you the second cause
of Pauls eXhilaration. If Christ had
stayed in that grave we never would
have gotten out OF it. The grave
would have been dark and dismal as
the Conciergerie 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 embalment of the body to resist
the dissolution Of death.
y he 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 stayed in the tomb all Friday
night ana all saturday, all Saturday
night and part of sunday morning
lie aged so long in the tomb that he
might fit it for us when we go there
lie tarried two whole nights in the
grave, 80 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 shru bs are sweet as the
foot crushe, 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 com
ing hand-in-hand, and troop after
troop, and | find it is a long process
olOn vi llt pItCIOuS dtdOs AllOuS
them are our own loved ones-father,
mother, brother, sister. companion,
children, coming up out of the eXca-
walton OF the rock until the last one
has stepped out into the light, and /
am bewildered, and | cannot under
stand the scene until see Christ wave
his hand over the advancing process
sion from the rock, and hear him cry,
II am the resurrection and the life;
he who believeth in me, though he
Were dead, yet shall he live" And
then | notice that the long dirge of
the worlds woe suddenly stops at the
archangehc shout of Come forth"
Oh my friends, if Christ hal not
broken out of the grave you and
would never come out of it. IL would
have been another case of Charlotte
Corday attempting to Stay P tyraut,
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
the 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! no! no! When that stone was
rolled from the door of Christ grave
it was hurled with such a force that
it crashed in all the grave doors of
Christendom, and now the tomb is only
IA bower where Gods children take a
siesta an afternoon nap, to wake up
in mighty invigoration. Christ has
risen" Hang that lamp among all
the tombs of my dead. Hang it over
my own resting place. Christ's suf-
fering is ended; his work is done. The
darkest Friday afternoon of the
world S history becomes the brightest
Sunday morning of its resurrection
joy! The Good Friday of bitter mem
cries becomes the Easter of glorious
transformation and resurrection.
We mourning saints, dry every tear
For your departed Lord.
Behold the place: He is not here;
The tomb is all unbarred.
The gates of death were closed in vain,
The Lord is risen, he lives again.
I piva Won tho third causa of po,,1,o