Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-02-28

your face in her lap and have a good
sryl
But can tell you of a more sympa-
thetic and more tender and more loving
face than any of the faces have men,
toned. "No, you cannot, says some
one. can. and will. 1t is the face
of Jesus Christ as he was on earth and
is now in heaven. When preparing my
life of Christ, entitled From Manger
to Throne" ransacked the art gal
leries and portfolios of the world to find
a picture of our Saviour's face that
might be most expressive, and / saw II
as francesca Francia painted 1t 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 1t, and as Leonardo da
Vinci showed it in THE Last Supper,
and l looked in the Louvre, and the
Luxembourg, and the Vatican, and the
Dresden, and the Berlin, and Neapolitan
and London galleries for the most in
spring face of Christ, and many of the
presentations were wonderful for pathos
and majesty and power and execution,
but although l selected that by AIRY
Scheffer as in some respects the most
expressive / 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 gentle face it must have been
to induce the babes to struggle out of
their mothers arms into his armsl
been when one reproving look of it
threw stalwart Peter into a fit of tears
What pleading faceit must have been
to lead the psalmist in prayer to say
of it, "Look upon the face of thine
anointedl" 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 gar
ment! What suffering face it must
have been when suspended on the per-
pendicular 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 universe
when he says, From whose face the
earth and the heaven fed away"
THE FACE oMNIPoTENT.
O Christi 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 for
give us, thy sympathetic face and con-
sole US, thy suffering face and have thy
atonement avail for us, thy omnipotent
face and rescue us. Oh, what a facet So
SCARED, so lacerated, so resplendent, so
overwhelmingly glorious that the sera-
phim 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 morn,
ing turning upon us with a 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 con-
denim thee, and to the eyes of the
blind beggar of the wayside, BE open
ed. l think my brother John, the re-
turned foreign missionary, dying sum-
mer before last at Bound Brook, caught
a glimpse Of that face of Christ when
in his dying hour my brother said, ~
shall be satisfied when l awake in his
likeness. " And now unto him that
loved MS 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 dominion for ever and
ever. Amen and amenl Amen and
amenl