Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1894-03-09

| nave sucn general dolefulneSS that they dis
| gust young people with religion. We had ono
| ofthem in one Of my churches. When he ex-
| orted, he always deplored the low state of
| religion in other people, and when he prayed
| 1t was an attack ofhysteria, and he went into
a paroxysm Of obs and abs that seemed to
! demand resuScitatiOn. He went on in that
way until we had to expel him from the
! church for stealing the property intruste1 to
| him as administrator and for other vices
| that will not mention, ana he wrote me
several letters not at all complimentary from
the West, saying that he was daily praying
for my everlasting destruction. man can
not have hypocrisy in his heart without some
| how showing 1t In his face. All Intelligent
| people who witness 1t know it is nothing but
a dramatization.
Oh, the power of the human face! l war
rant that you have known faces so magnetic
and impressive that, though they vanished
long ago, they still hold you with holy
spell. How long since your child went?
"Well. you say, "if she had lived she would
nave been ten years old now or twenty or
thirty years" But does not that infants
face still nave tender supremacy over your
entire nature2 During many an eventide
does 1t not look at you? What a sanctifying,
hallowing influence it has been in your life!
You can say in the words of the poet, "Bet-
ter to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at ALL" Or it may have
been a eister's face. Perhaps she was
the invalid of the family. Perhaps she
never went out except on very clear
days, and then she had to be carried
down the stairs to the piazza or for short
ride, but she was so patient and cheerful
under it all. As that face looks at you
through the years with what an elevated and
heavenly emotion you are filed. Or was it
a fathers face? The storms of life had
somewhat r0ughened it. A good deal of the
brightness ofthe eye had been quenched, and
the ear was turned with the hand behind 1t
in order to hear at all. But you remember
that face 80 wildly that if you were an
artist you could put it on canvas, and it
would mean to you more than any face that
Rembrandt ever sketched. That face,
though long ago yelled from human sight,
is as plain in your memory as though you
this moment saw 1t moving gently forward
and backward in the rocking chair by the
stove In the old farmhouse. Or was it your
mothers face? good mothers face is never
homely to her boys and girls. 1t is Ma
DONNA in the picture gallery of the memory.
What sympathetic face it was! Did you
ever have JOY and that face did not respond
to lit? Did you ever have grief and no tears
trickie down that maternal cheek? Did you
ever do bad thing and shadow did not
cross it2 Oh. it was sweet face! The spec |
tacles with large, round glasses through |
which she looked at you, how sacredty they |
have been kept in bureau or closet Your
mothers face, your mothers smile, your
mother tears! What an overpowering |
memory! Though you have come on to mid |
life or old age, how you would like just once
more to bury your face in her lap and have a |
good cry!
But can tell you of a moro sympathetic |
and more tender and more loving face than
any Of the faces I have mentioned. "No, you |
cannot" says some one. can, and Will.
It is the face of Jesus Christ as He was on |
earth and is now In heaven. When prepar- |
ing my life of Christ, entitled 'Frnm Man |
ger to Throne" | ransacked the art CALLER |
les and portfolios of the world to find pie
ture of our SaviOur's face that might be most |
expressive, and l saw it as Francesca Francia |
painted it in the sixteenth century, and as |
the emerald intaglio of the sixth century |
presented it, and as a fresco in the catacombs |
near Rome preserved it, and as Leonardo da |
Vinci showed 1t in "The Last Supper" and ! |
looked in the Louvre, and the Luxembourg, |
and the Vatican, and the Dresden, and the |
Berlin, and Neapoltan and London galleries |
for the most inspiring face of Christ, and |
many of the presentations were wonderful
for pathos and majesty and power and exc
cution, but although l selected that by AIRY
Scnetfer as in some respects the most express
sive felt we all feel-that our Christ has
never yet been presented either in sculpture
or painting and that we will have to wait
until we rise to the upper palace. where we
shall see Him as He is
What a gentle face it must have been to
induce the babes to struggle out Of their
mo! hers arms into His arms What an ex-
pJ&3ssive face it must have been when one re-
proving look OI lE Threw StdiWttI f1LPI lutO
a fit of tears T.! What e pleading face it must
have been to lead the psalmist in prayer -
say OF it, Look upon the face OF thine
aniointed y What a sympathetic face it
must have been to encourage the sick woman
who was beyond any help from the doctors
to touch the hem of His garment What a
suffering face it must have been when sus-
pended on the perpendicular and horizontal
pieces of the wood of martyrdonr. and His
antagonists slapped the palhd cheek with
Atot.. H. locN ,Iol AI~a
saliva of their blasphemous lips What
tremendous faco it must have been to lead
st. John to describe it in the coming judg-
ment as scattering the universe when he
SAYS, "FrOm whose face the earth and the
heaven fed away
o Christ Once the Nazarene but now the
celestial! Once of cross, but now of thrOnel
Once crowned with st1nging bramble, but
now coroneted with the jewels of ransomed
empires! Turn on Thy pardoning face and
forgive US, Thy sympathetic face and console
US, Thy suffering face and have Thy atone
ment avail for us, Thy omnipotent face and
rescue US. Oh, what a face 50 SCARED, so
lacerated, Sc resplendent. so overwhelming
ly glorious that the seraphim put wing to
wing and with their con njOined piniOnS keep
off some of the luster that is too mighty evon
for eyes cherubic or angelic, and vet this
morning turning upon US with n sheathed
splendor like that with which He ap-
peared when He said to the mothers
bashful about presenting their children,
''Suffer them to come" and to the poor
waif of the street, ''Neither do 1 condemn
thee" and to the eyes Of the blind beggar of
the wayside, ''Be opened" I think my
brother John, the returned foreign mission
ary, dying summer before last at Bound
Brook, caught glimpse of that face of Christ
when in his dying hour my brother said 81
shall be satisfied when | awaken in His like
ness" And now unto Him that loved US and
washed US from our sins in His own blood
an1 hath made US kings and priests unto God
and His Father, to Him be glory and domin-
ion for ever and ever. Amen and amen!
Amen and amen!