The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-03-02
flash aud his cheeks glow at every men,

flash and his cheeks glow at every men.
tion of Christ and Heaven.
"Now," says some one, 81 know very
good people who have no such religion
In their faces" My friend, the reason
probably is that they we not con-
verted until late in life. Worldliness
and sin had been at work with their
chisel only five or ten years DO not
be surprised that Phidias and Green
ough, with their fine chisels, cannot in
a short while remove all the marks of
the stonemason's crowbar. which has
been busy there for long while. 1
say TO all the young, If you would have
sympathetic face, hopeful face, cour-
ageous face, cheerful face, Kind face. at
the earliest possible moment, by the
grace of God, have planted in your soul
sympathy. and hope. and courage, and
good cheer. and kindness Oh, the
power of the human face! ] warrant
that you have known faces so magnetic
and impressive that though they van
ished long ago they still hold you with
a holy spell. How long since your
child went? WELL" you say, IF she
| hao tlNCo bic NOulu nave OCCh
10 years old now, or 20 or so
years" But does not that infants
face have a supremacy over your en-
tire nature? During many an eventide
does it not look at you? In your
dreams do you not see it? What a
sanctifying, hallowing influence it has
been in your life. You can say in the
words of the poet; "Better to have
loved and loss than never to have loved
at all" Or, it may have been sisters
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 short ride, but
she was so patient and cheerful under
it all. AS that face looks at you
| through the years with what an ele-
| waited and heavenly emotion you
are filled. Or, was it n fathers
face? The storms of life had
somewhat roughened it. That
face, though long ago yelled from
human sight, is as plain in your men,
DRY as though you this moment saw it
moving gently forward and backward
in the rocking chair by the stove in the
old farm house. Or, was it your moth
er's face? \ good mothers face is new
er homely to her boys and girls. 1t is
a Madonna in the picture gallery of the
memory. What sympathetic face it
was! Did you ever have a joy and that
face did not respond to it? Did you
ever have grief and no tears trickled
4
ever do a bad thing and a shadow did
not cross it? Oh, it was sweet face!
Your mothers face your, mothers smile,
your mothers tears! What an over
towering 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 more sympa-
thetic and more tender and more low
ing face than any of the faces have
metioned 1t is the face of Jesus
Christ as He was on earth and is now
in Heaven. What gentle face it must
have been to induce the babes to strug-
gle out of their mothers arms into His
arms! What an expressive face it must
have been when one reproving look of
it threw stalwart Peter into fit of
tears. What a pleading face it must
have been to lead the Psalmist in
prayer to say of it: Look upon
the face of Thine anointed 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 o His garment! What
suffering face it must have been
when suspended 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 a
tremendous face it must have been to
lead St John to describe it in the COM
ing judgment as scattering the uni
verse when he says. From whose face
the earth and the heaven fled away"
Oh, Christ. Once the Nazarene, but
now the Celestial! Once of cross, but
now of throne. Once crowned with
singing bramble, but now coroneted
with the jewels of ransomed empiresl
Turn on us Thy pardoning face and
forgive us; Thy sympathetic face and
console us; Thy suffering face and have
Thy atonement avail for us; Thy ON
nipotent face and rescue us. Oh, what
face. So SCARED, so lacerated, so re-
splendent so overwhelmingly 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 archangelic;
and yet this morning turning upon us
with sheathed splendor like that
with which He appeared when He said
to the mothers bashful about present
ing their children: Suffer them to
GOMEZ and the poor waif of the
street; Neither do / condemn
thee;" and to the eyes of the
blind beggar of the wayside: BE
opened l think my brother John, the
returned foreign missionary, dying
summer before last at Bound Brook,
caught glimpse of that face of Christ
when in his dying hour my broth
said: II shall be satisfied when l wake
in his likeness" And now unto Him
that loves us, and washed us from our
sins in His own blood, and hath made
kings and priests unto God and His
Father. to Him be glory and dominion,
forever and ever. Amen and amen! ,
Amen and amen,