Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1894-03-03

the heart religions says: "Now let me
go up to the windows and front gate Of
the face and set up some signal that
have taken possession Of this castle.
will celebrate the victory by an illumi-
nation that no one can mistake. have
made this man happy, and now l will
make him look happy. l will draw the
corners Of his mouth as far up as they
were drawn down. l will take the con-
temrtuous 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 even
the wrinkles Of his face look like fur
rows plowed for the harvest of joy. !
will make what we call the crows
feet around mis- temples suggestive that
the dove of peace has been alighting
there" There may be signs CT trouble
on that face, but trouble sanctifed.
There may be scars Of battle on that face,
but they will be scars of campaigns
won.
POWER OF FACE.
Now, "says some one, II know very
good people who have no such religion
in their faces. My friend, the reason
probably is that they were not converted
until late in life. Worldliness and Sin
had been at work with their chisels on
that face for 80 or 40 years, and Grace,
the divine sculptures, has been busy with
her 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
stone mason's crowbar, which has been
busy there for long while. say to
all the young, If you would have SYM
pathetic face, hopeful face, courageous
face, cheerful face, kind face, at the
earliest possible moment by the grace
OF God have planted in your soul SYM
pathy and hope and courage and good
cheer and kindness. No man ever in
dulged gracious feeling or was moved
by righteous indignation or was stirred
by benevolent impulse but its effect
was more or less indicated in the coun-
tenance, while David noticed the physi-
ognomlc effect of bad disposition when
he said, "A wicked man hardeneth his
face" and Jeremiah must have noticed
1t when he said of the cruel, They
have made their faces harder than a
rock. "
Oh, the power of the human face! l
warrant that you have known faces SO
magnetic and impressive that, though
they vanished long ago, they still hold
you with holy spell. How long since
your child went? Well, you say, eff
she had lived she would have been 10
years old now, or 90 or 80 years. " But
does not that infant face still have ten
der supremacy over your entire nature?
During many an eventide does it not
look at you? In your dreams do you not
see it? What sanctifying, hallowing
influence it has been in your life! You
can say in the words of the poet, Bet
ter to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all" Or it may have
been sisters face. Perhaps che 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
short ride, but she was so patient and
cheerful under it all AS that face looks
at you through the years with what an
elevated and heavenly emotion you are
filed. Or was it fathers face? The
storms of life had somewhat roughened
1t. A good deal of the brightness of
the eye had been quenched, and the ear
was turned with the hand behind it in
order to hear at all. But you remember
that face so wildly that if you were an
artist you could put it on canvas. and
it would mean to you more than any
face that Rembrandt ever sketched.
That face, though long ago yelled from
human sight, is as plain in your memory
as though you this moment saw it NOV
ing gently forward and backward in the
rocking chair by the stove in the old
farmhouse. Or was it your mothers
face? A good mother face is never
homely to her boys and girls. 1t is
Madonna" in the picture gallery of the
memory. What sympathetic face it
wasl Did you ever have JOY and that
face did not respond to it? Did you ever
have grief and no tears trickled down
that maternal cheek? Did you ever doa
bad thing and shadow did not cross
1t? Oh, it was a sweet facet The spec
tacles with large, round glasses through
which she looked at you, how sacredly
they have been kept in bureau or closet!
Your mothers face, your mothers
smile, your mothers tears What an
overpowering memory Though you
have come on to midlife or old age, how
you would like just once more to bury
your face in her lap and have a good
cry!
But I can tell you of more sympa-
thetic and more tender and more loving
face than any of the faces l have men
toned. mo, you cannot. says some
one. l 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 IND
a picture of our Saviour's face that
might be most expressive, and saw 1t
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 1.-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
IL. ~