Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1894-03-09
u our Saviours face that mfyrt

or our SaSiours face that mfgnt be
most expressive, and / saw it as
Francesca Francia painted it in the
sixteenth century, and as the emerald
intaglio ofthe sixth century presented
it,sand as Rsfresco in the catacombs
near Rome preAcryed it, and as Leonardo
Da Vinci showed it in THE Last Sup
per" and looked in the Louvre and
tlae taken bourg and the Vatican and
the Dresden and the Berlin and Nea-
spol1tan 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 l selected that by Ary
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 arms! What an expressive
face it must have been when one re-
proving look of it threw stalwart
Peter into a 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
Il 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 blasphelnous lips, What
tremendous face it must have been
to lead ST. John to describe it in the
coming judgment as sea altering 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 u.s.;
Thy omnipotent face and rescue
us. Oh, what agface! 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 u 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 last' 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 1 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 De glory anu common, forever
and ever, Amen and Amen! Amen and
Amen!