Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1894-03-14

and rscS~af3 In the rocking chair by the
stove in the old farmhouse. Or was II your
mothers face? A good mothers face is never
homely to her boys and girls. Il IS 'Nl-
donna" in the picture gallery OF the memory.
What sympathetic face it wasi Did you
ever have Joy and that face did not respond
20 1t? Did you ever have a grief and no tears
trickle down that maternal cheek? Did you
ever do bad thing and a shadow did not
cross II? Oh. II was sweet lace The spec
.acles with large, round glasses through
which she looked at YOU how sacredly they
nave been kept in bureau or closet Your
mothers face. your mothers smile, your
mothers tears What an oyerpowering
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
good cryi
But can tell YOU of a more sympathetic
and more tender and more loving face than
any of the faces have mentioned. "No, you
cannot," SAYS some one. / 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 CALLER
les and portfolios of the world to find pic
.ure OF our SaviOur's face that might be most
expressive, and saw il as Francesca Francia
painted il in the sixteenth century, and as
the emerald intaglio of the sixth century
presented II. and as frsscO in the catacomb5
near Rome preserved it, and as Leonardo da
vfnci showed it in ''rhe Last Supper" and
looked in the Louvre, and the Luxembourg,
and the Vatican, and the Dresden, and the
Berlin, and Neapolitan and London galleries
ior the most inspiring face Of Christ, and
many of the presentations were wonderful
for psthos and majesty and power and exc
cutiOn, but although l selected that by AIRY
Scheffer as in some respects the most express
siye felt as we all feel-that our Christ has
never yet been presented either in sculpture
tF,,t, ,vv-fll -
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 ints HIS arms! What an ex-
pressiYe face it must have been when one re-
proving look OF it threw stlwart Peter into
q fit of tearsl What a pleading face it must
have been to lead the pSalmist in prayer to
say OF il, "LOpk upon the face OF thine
aniointedT What n 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 garment! What a
suffering face it must have been when sus-
pended on the perpendicular and horizontal
pieces of the wood of nartyrdom, and His
antagonists slapped the pallid cheek with
their rough hands and beiouled it with the
saliva of their blasphemous lips! What a
tremendous face it must have been to lead
st. John to describe IL in the coming judC-
ment scattering the universe when ne
says, "From whose face the earth and the
heaven fed away
Christ Once the Nazareua, but now the
celestial! Once OF cross, but now of throne
Once crowned with singing bramble, but
now coroneted with the Jewels OF ransomed
empiresI Turn on Thy pardoninS 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, so
lacerated, so respiendent, so overwhelming
ly glorious that the seraphim put wing to
wing and with their cOniOined pinions keep
of some OF the luster that is too mighty even
for eyes ch-rubic or angelic, and yet this
morning turning upon US with n sheathed
splendor like that with which He ap-
peared when He said to the mothers
bashful about presenting their children,
"Sufer them TO come" and to the poor
waif OF the street, ''Neither do 1 condemn
thee" and to the eyes OF the blind beggar Of
the wayside, "Be opened" l 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: II
shall be satisfied when l 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!