The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1894-07-11

one.
In this garden Of the church, which
Christ has planted, I also find the snow
drops, beautiful bat cod locking, seem
| inely another phase Of the winter. l
mean those Christians who are precise II
their tastes, unimpassi0ned, pure as
| snowdrops and as cold. They never
shed any teara; they never get excited;
the never say anything rashly;
they never do anything pre-
cipltatelv. Their pulses never tiutter;
their nerves never twitcb; their indigoa-
| tion never boil5 over. They live longer
than most people, but their life is IN a
MINOR kew. They never ran up to &c"
above the staff In the music Of saelr lie
| they have 20 staccato passages. Christ
planted them in the church, and they
must be of some service, or they wouLd
not be there. Soowdrops, always
| snowdrops.
| But have not told lOr OF the most
F! beautiful flower in all the garden spoken
cf in the text. II you see century
lplant,D your emotions ara started. You
say, why, this flower has been hun
dred years gathering up for oue bloom,
andit will be hundred years more be
tore other petals Will come out" But
have to tell you of a plant that was
gathering up from all eternity, aud that
lI,90Oy years ago put forth It's bloom nsVel
TO Gither. It is the passion flower OF
| the cross! Prophets foretoid it. Beth
lehem shepherds looked on 1t IN the bud
the rocks shook at its bursting, and the
dead got up in their winding sheets to
see its full bloom. Ills crimson 1low-
er-blood at the roofs, blood on the
branches, blood on all the leaves. lis
perfume ie to Gil all the nations. lis
touch is life. lis breath is heaven.
Come 0 winds. from the north and
win IS from The south and winds from
the east and winds from the west, and
bear to al the earth the sweet smelling
SAVIOR Of Christ, my Lord.
His worth, if all the nations knew,
Sure the whole earth would love him too.
Again the church may be appropri-
ately compared to s garden, because 1t
is a place Of select fruits. That would
be strange garden which had In 1t no
berries, no plums, no peaches oraprlcots.
The coarser fruits are planted IN the Or
chard or they are set out on the sunny
hillside, but the choicest fruits are kept
in the garden.
So ia the world outside the church
| Christ has planted a great many beautl-
ful things-patience, clarity, generosity,
integrity-but he intends the choicest
fruits to be in the garden, and + they are
not there then shame on the church.
Religion is not mere towering sentl-
mentality. 1t is practical life giving,
bealthful fru!t-not posies, but apples.
"Oh," ssys somebody, II don't see
what your garden OF the church has
yielded.n Where did your asYiums
come from, and your hospitals, and your
institutions Of mercy? Christ planted
every one Of them. He planted them
| in his garden. When Christ gave sight
to Bartimeus, he laid the cornerstone OF
every blind asylum that has ever beeu
built. When Christ soothed the demo-
MAC of Galilee, he laid the cornerstone
of every lunatic asylum that has ever
been established. When Christ said to
The sick man, t'Take up thy bed and
walk" he laid the cornerstone OF every
hospital the world has ever seen. When
Christ said, Il was in prison, and ye
visited me-" he laid the cornerstone OF
every prison reform association that has
ever been formed. The church Of Christ
| is a glorious garden and it tls full Of fruit.
I know there Is some poor fruit in it. I
know there are some weeds that ought
to have been thrown over the fence. L
know there are some crab apple trees
that ought to be cut down. l know
there are some wild grapes that ought 10
be uprooted, but are you gong to de-
stro7 the whole garden because OF lit
tie gnarled fruit? You will find worm
eaten leaves in Fontainebleau and in
sects that sting in the fairy groves Of the
Champs ElYees. You do not tear down
and destroy the whole garden because
| there are few specimens OF gnarled
fruit. admit there are men and women
| in the church who ought not to be there
but let us be Just as frank and admit the
fact that there are hundreds and thous-
| ands and tens of thousands of glorious
Christian men and women holy, blessed,
useful, consecrated and triumphant.
There is no grander collection in all the
earth than the collection of Christians.
| There are Christian men in the church
whose religion is not matter OF psalm
singing and church going. Tomorrow
morning that religion will keep them
| lust as consistent and c0usecrated on
''exchange" as it ever kept them at the
communion table. There are women N
the church Of q higher type Of character
than Mary Of Bethany. They not only
| sit at the teet Of Christ, but they 90 out
into the kitchen to help Martha IN her
work, that she may sit there too. There
is woman who has a drunken husband,
who has exhibited more faith and pa
| tlence and courage than Hugh Latimer
IN the fire. He was consumed in 20
minutes. Hers has been a 20 years.
martyrdom. Yonder is man who has
lain Is years on his back, unable even
to feed himself, yet calm and peaceful
as though be lay on one of the green
banks Of heaven, watching the oarsmen
dip their paddles in the crystal ri7el!
Why, it seems to me this m0mentas if
Paul threw to us q pomologist'8 cata-
logue of the fruits growing II this great
garden Of Chrjst-love, joy, peace, pa
tience, charity, brotherly kindness, gen
tleness, mercy-glorious fruit, enough
to fill all the baskets ofeSrth and heaven.
I have not told you Of the better tree
in this garden and Of the better fruit. It
was planted just outside Jerusalem a
good while ago. When that tree was
planted, it was so split and bruised and
barked men SAID nothing would ever
grow upon it, but no sooner had that
tree been planted than it
budded and blossomed and fruited, and
the soldiers spears were only the clubs
that struck down that fruit, and it fell
into the lsp of the nations, and men be-
gan to pick it up and eat it, and they
found 1t an antidote to all thirst, to all
poison, to all sin, to all death-tbe
en1oI1aet rluster larger than the famous