The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-03-09

soul, washing out sins by the blood Of
the Lamb and starting Heaven right
there and then This done deep
down in the heart, religion says:
''Now let me go up to the win
dows and front gate of the face
and set up some signal that / have
taken possession of this castle. will
celebrate the victory by an illumina-
ton that no one can mistake. have
made this man happy, and now 1 will
make him look happy. l will draw
the corner of his mouth as far up as
they were drawn down. 1 will take the
contemptuous curl away from the lip
and nostriL will make his eyes flash
and his cheeks glow at every mention
of Christ and Heaven. l will make
ven-the wrinkles of his face look like
burrows plowed for the harvests of
joy. / will make what we call the
crows feet around his temples sug-
gestive that the dove of peace has been
alighting there" There may be signs
of trouble on that face, but trouble
sanctified. There may be scars of bat
tie on that face, but they will be scars
of campaigns won.
But | can tell you of a more sympa-
thetic and more tender and more low
ing face than any of the faces have
mentioned. mo, you can not says
some one. | can and l will. 1t is the
face of Jesus Christ as He was on earth
and is know in Heaven. When pre-
pairing my Life of Christ" entitled
Prom Manager TO Throne" 1 ram
sacked the art galleries and port
folios of the world to find a picture
of our Saviour's 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 catacombs
near Rome preserved it, and as Leonardo
Da Vinci showed it in ''The Last Sup
per-" and / looked in the Louvre and
the Luxembourg and the Vatican and
the Dresden and the Berlin and Nea-
politan and London galleries for the
most inspiring face of Christ, and
many of the presentations were
wonderful for pathos and majes-
ty, and power, and execution,
but although / 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 a gentle face it
must have been to induce the babes to
struggle out of their mothers arms
into His arms! What an expressive
face it must have been when one re-
proving look of it threw stalwart
Peter into fit of tears! What plead
ing 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 of the doctors, to
touch the hem OF 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 Dlasphemous lips! What
a tremendous face it must have been
to lead st. John to describe it in the
coming judgment as scattering the uni
verse when He says: From whose face
the earth and the Heaven fed 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 empires!
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 omnipotent face and rescue
us. Oh, what a'face! So SCARED, SO
lacerated, so resplendent. so over
whelminglY glorious that the seraphim
put wing to wing, and with their COM
bined pinions keep off some of the luster
that is too mighty even for eyes cheru-
bic or archangelic; and yet this morning
turning upon us with sheathed splen-
dor like that with which He appeared
when He said to the mothers bashful
about presenting their children: "Suf-
fer them to Gomez" 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 opened"
think my brother John, the
returned foreign missionary, dying
summer before lastI at Bound
Brook, caught a glimpse of that
face of Christ when in his dy-
ing hour my brother said: 81 shall be
satisfied when wake in His likeness
And now unto Him that loves 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 dominion, forever
and ever, Amen and Amen! Amen and
Amen!