Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1894-04-28

take care or you. will be TO you both
father and mother. My arm is strong.
Girls, you can depend on meP'
Comfort of Tears.
But now Lazarus was sick-yea, Laz-
arus was dead. All broken up, the Sis
tiers sit disconsolate, and there is a knock
at the door. Come in, I" says Martha
Come in, " says Mary. Christ entered,
and he just broke down. TWAS too much
for him. He had been SO often and so
kindly entertained in that home before
sickness and death devastated it that he
choked up and sobbed aloud, and the
tears trickled down the sad face of the
sympathetic Christ. Jesus wopt. F"
Why do you not try that mode of help
ing? You say, II am man of few
words" or st am a woman Of few
words. - Why, you dear soul, words are
not necessary. Initiate your Lord and
20 to those afflicted homes and cry with
them.
John Murphy Well, you did not
know him. Once, when was in great
bereavement, he came to my house.
Kind ministers of the gospel had come
and talked beautifully and prayed with
us and did all they could to console.
But John Murphy, one Of the best friends
1 ever had, big souled, glorious Irish
man, came in and looked into my face,
put out his broad, strong hand and said
not q word, but sat down and cried with
us. am not enough of a philosopher to
say how it was or why it was, but some
how from door to door and from floor
to ceiling the room was filled with an
all pervading comfort "Jesus wept. "
l think that is what makes Christ
such a popular Christ. There are SO
many who want sympathy. Miss Fiske,
the famous HISTORIAN missionary, was
in the chapel one day talking to the
heather, and she was in very poor health
and so weak she sat upon a mat while
she talked and felt the need of some
thing to lean against, when she felt a
woman's form at her back and heard a
woman's voice saying, LEAN on me. "
She leaned little, but did not want to
be too cumbersome, when the woman's
voice said, Lean hard; if you love me,
lean hard. "
And that makes Christ so lovely. He
wants all the sick and troubled and
weary to lean against him, and he says,
LEAN hard; if you love me, lean hard.
Aye, he is close by with his sympathet-
ic help. Hedley Wears, the famous sol
der and Christian Of the Crimean war,
died because when he was wounded his
regiment was too far off from the tent
of supplies. He was not mortally wound
ed, and if the surgeons could only have
got at the bandages and the medicines
he would have recovered. So much OF
human sympathy and hopefulness comes
too late But Christ is always close by
if we want him, and has all the medi-
cines ready, and has eternal life for all
who ask for it. Sympathy!
A Sublime Self Sacrifice.
Ave, he was lovely in his doctrines.
Self sacrifice or the relief of the suffer-
ing of others by our own suffering He
was the only physician that ever pro-
posed to cure his patients by taking their
disorders. Self sacrifice! And what did
he not give up for others? The best CHI
mate in the universe, the air Of heaven,
for the wintry weather of Palestine,
scepter of unlimited dominion for
prisoners box in an earthly courtroom,
a flashing tiara for crown of singing
brambles, a palace for cattle pen, q
throne for cross. Self sacrificed What
is more lovely? Mothers dying for their
children down with scarlet fever, rail
road engineers going down through
the open drawbridge to save the train,
fremen scorched to death trying to help
some one down the ladder from the
fourth story Of the consuming house.
All these put together only faint and
insufficient SMILES by which to illustrate
the grander mightier, farther reaching
self sacrifice of the altogether lovely.
Do you wonder that the story of his
self sacrifice has led hundreds of thou
sands to die for him? In one series OF
prosecutions over 200, 900 were put to
death for Christ's sake. For him Blan-
dina was tied to post and wild beasts
were let out upon her, and when LIE
continued after the attack Of tooth and
paw she was put in net, and that net
containing her was thrown to wild
bull that tossed her with its horns till
life was extinct. All for Christ! Hugue-
nots dying for Christ! Albigenses dying
for Christi The Vaudois dying for
Christi Smithfeld fires endured for
Christ! The bones Of martyrs, if distrib-
uted, would make a path of moldering
life all around the earth. The loneliness
of the Saviour's sacrifice has inspired
all the heroisms and all the martyr
dons of subsequent centuries. Christ
has had more men and women die for
him than all the other inhabitants of all
the ages have had die for them.
Furthermore, he was lovely IN his
sermons He knew when to begin, when
to stop and just what to say. The long
est sermon he ever preached, so far as
the Bible reports him-namely, the SER
mon on the mount was about 16 min
utes in delivery-at the ordinary rate OF
speech. His longest prayer reported,
commonly called 1.-THE Lords Prayer, "
was about half minute. Time them
by your own watch, and you will find
my estimate accurate, by which l do
not mean to say that sermons ought to
be only 16 minutes long and prayers
only half minute long Christ had
such infinite power of compression that
he could put enough into his 16 minute
sermon and half minute prayer to
keep all the following ages busy in
thought and action No one but Christ
could afford to pray or preach as short
as that, but he meant to teach US COM