The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1894-04-23

go to man or woman'of forbidding an
: pearance. But no sooner did Christ ap
pear in the domestic group than ther
was an infantile excitement, and tn
youngsters began to struggle to get Gu
of their mothers arms. They could no
hold the children back. "Stand bac]
with those children!' scolded some O
the disciples. Perhaps the little one
may have been playing in the dirt, ant
their faces may not have been clean, o.
they may not have been well clad, or thu
disciples may have thought Chrises re
ligion was a religion chiefly for big
folks. But Christ made the inf lntile ex
element still livelier by his saying thai
he liked children better than grown peo
pie, declaring, Except We become as 6
little child We cannot enter into the
kingdom of God. "
Alas for those people who do not like
children They had better stay out OF
heaven, for the place is full of them.
That, I think, is one reason why the
vast majority of the human race die in
infancy. Christ is so fond of children
that he takes them to himself before the
world has time to despoil and harden
them, and so they are now at the win
dows of the palace and ON the doorsteps
and playing on the green. Sometimes
Matthew or Mark or Luke tells story
of Christ, and only one tells it, but
Matthew, Mark and Luke all join in
that picture of Christ girdled by chill
dren, and I know by what occurred at
that time that Christ had face full Of
geniality.
Habits of Chri-t.
Not only was Christ altogether lovely
in his countenance, but lovely in his
habits. 1 know, without being told, that
the Lord who t1ade the rivers and lakes
and oceans was clearly in his appear
ance. He disliked the disease of leprosy
not only because it was distressing, but
because it was not clean, and his curative
words were: IT will. Be thou clean. "
He declared himself in favor of thor
ough washing and opposed to superb
cial washing when he denounced the
hypocrites for making clean only ''the
outside of the platter, and he applauds
his disciples by saying, "Now are ye
CLEAN" and giving directions to those
who tasted, among other things, he says,
"Wash thy face" and to blind man
whom he was doctoring, "Go, wash in
the pool of Siloam," and he himself
actually washed the disciples feet, I
suppose not only to demonstrate his
own humility, but probably their feet
needed to be washed
The fact is, the Lord was a great
friend of water. I know that from the
fact that most of the world is water.
But when find Christ in such constant
commentator of water I know he was
personally neat, although he mingled
much among very rough populations and
took such long journeys ON dusty high
ways. He wore his hair long, according
to the custom of his land and time, but
neither trouble nor old age had thinned
or injured his locks, which were never
WI n1kGgy or unkempt Yea, all his
h; Apersonal appearance were
5 also an established habit
b addition to the water, he
d 19 Juice of the grape When at
Welding party this beverage gave out,
he made gallons on gallons of grape
juice, but it was as unlike what the
world makes in our time as health is
different from disease and as calm
pulses are different from the paroxysms
of delirium tremens. There was no
strychnine in that beverage or logwood
or nux vomica. The tipplers and the
sots who now quote the winemaking in
Cana of Galilee as an excuse for the
fiery and damning beverages of the nine
teenth century forget that the wine at
the New Testament wedding had two
characteristics-the one that the Lord
made it and the other that it was made
out of water. Buy all you can of that |
kind and drink it at least three times a
day and send barrel of it round to my |
cellar.
You cannot make me believe that the
blessed Christ who went up and down
healing the sick would create for man
that style of drink which is the cause |
of disease more than all other causes
combined, or that he who Gained the
maniacs into their right mind would
create that style of drink which does
more than anything else to fill insane
asylums, or that he who was SO helpful
to the poor would make style Of drink
that crowds the earth with pauperism,
or that he who came to save the nations
from sin would create liquor that is
the source of most of the crime that
now stuffs the penitentiaries. A lovely
sobriety was written all over his face,
from the hair line of the forehead to the
bottom of the bearded chin.
Christ the Physician.
Domesticity was also his habit.
Though too poor to have home of his
own, he went out to spend the night at
Bethany, two or three miles walk from
Jerusalem, and over rough and billy
road that made it equal to six or seven
miles, every morning and night
going to and fro. 1 would rather walk
from here to Central park, or walk from
to Arthur's Seat, or in Lon
don clear around Hyde park, than tc
walk that road that Christ walked twice