The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1894-03-14

for my everlasting destruction. A man can
not have hypocrisy in his heart without some
how showing it in his face. All intelligent
people who witness it know it is nothing but
dramatization.
Oh, the power Of the human face! 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, sf she had lived she would
have been ten years old now, or twenty or
thirty years." But does not that infants
face still have tender supremacy over your
entire nature? During many an eventlde
does it not look at you2 What 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 q 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 a snort
ride, but she was 30 patient and cheerful
under it al. AS that face looks at you
through the years with what an elevated ana
heavenly emotion you are filed. or was II
q fathers face? The storms OF life had
somewhat roughened 1t. 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 vividly that If you were an
artist you could put it on canvas. and 1t
would mean to you more than any face that
Rembrandt ever sketched. That race,
though long ago yelled from human slgnt,
Is as plain in your memory as though you
this moment saw It moving gently forwaro
and backward in the rocking chair by the
stove in the old farmhouse. Or was it your
mothers face? A 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 1t was DID you
ever have joy and that face did not respond
toit? Did you ever have grief and no tears
trickle down that maternal cheek? Did you
ever do bad thing and a shadow did not
cross it2 Oh. L was sweet face! Tne spec
tacles with large, round glasses through
which she looked at you, how sacredly they
have been kept in bureau or closet! Your
mothers face, your mothers smile, your
mothers 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 naVea
good cry!
But can tell you Of more sympathetic
and more tender and more loving face than
any OF the faces have mentioned. mo, you
cannot" says some one. l 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 From Man
GER to Throne" ransacked the art galler-
les and portfolios of the world to find pic
ture OF our Saviours face that might be most
expressive, and saw it as francesca Francia
painted it in the sixteenth century, and as
the emerald intaglio of the sixth century
presented it, and as fresco in the catacomos
near Rome preserved 1t, and as Leonardo "a
Vinci showed it in "The Last Supper" and
looked in the Louvre, and the luxembourg,
and the Vatican, and the Dresden, and the
Berlin, and Neapolitan 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 selected that by AIRY
Schensr as in some respects the most express
sive felt as 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
mothers arms into His arms! What an ex-
pressiye face it must have been when one re-
proving look of it threw stalwart Peter into
flt of tears! What pleading face it must
have been to lead the psalmist In prayer to
say OF 1t, "Look upon the face OF thine
aniointed!" What a sympathetic face 1t
must have been to encourage the sick woman
who was beyond any help from the doctors
to touch the hem Of His garment What
suffering face it must have been when sus-
pended on the perpendicular and horizontal
pieces Of the wood OF martyrdom, and His
antagonists slapped the pallid cheek with
their rough hands and befouled it with the
saliva of their blasphemous lips What
tremendous face 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 throne !!
Once crowned with stinging 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 face! SO SCARED, 80
lacerated, so resplendent, 80 overwhelming
ly glorious that the seraphim put wing to
wing and with their conjoined pinions keep
off some Of the luster that is too mighty even
for eyes cherubic or angelic, and yet this
morning turning upon us with 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
wait OF the street, "Neither do I condemn
thee" and to the eyes OF the blind beggar Of
the wayside, "Be opened" 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 Il
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
and 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!