Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1894-04-27

to ceiling the room was filed with an
all pervading comfort. Jesus wept. "
l think that is what makes Christ
such popular Christ. There are so
many who want sympathy. Miss Fiske,
tho famous HISTORIAN missionary, was
in the chapel one day talking to the
heather, and she was in very poor health
and so weak she sat upon mat while
she talked and felt the need Of some
thing to lean against, when she felt a
woman's form at her back and heard
woman's voice saying, Lean on me. "
She leaned a little, but did not want to
be too cumbersome, when the woman's
voice said, Lean hard; if you love me,
lean hard ,"
And that makes Christ so lovely. He
wants all the sick and troubled and
weary to lean against him, and he says,
Lean hard; if you love me, lean hard "
Aye, he is close by with his sympathet-
ic help Hedley Wears, the famous SOL
der and Christian Of the Crimean war,
died because when he was wounded his
regiment was too far off from the tent
of supplies. He was not mortally wound
ed, and if the surgeons could only have
got at the bandages and the medicines
he would have recovered So much Of
human sympathy and hOpefulness comes
too late. But Christ is always close by
if we want him, and has all the medi-
cines ready, and has eternal life for all
who ask for it. Sympathy!
A Sublime Self Sacrifice.
Ave. he was lovely in his doctrines.
Self sacrifice or the relief Of the suffer
ing of others by our own suffering. He
was tho only physician that ever pro-
posed to cure his patients by taking their
disorders. Self sacrificed And what did
he not give up for others? The best eli
mate in the universe, the air Of heaven,
for the wintry weather Of Palestine, q
scepter Of unlimited dominion for
prisoners box in an earthly courtroom,
a flashing tiara for a crown Of singing
brambles, a palace for a cattle pen,
throne for a cross. Self sacrificed What
is moro lovely? Mothers dying for their
children down with scarlet fever, rail
road engineers going down through
the open drawbridge to save the train,
fremen scorched to death trying to help
some one down the ladder from the
fourth story Of the consuming house.
All these put together only faint and
insufficient SMILES by which to illustrate
the grander, mightier, farther reaching
self sacrifice Of the altogether lovely. "
Do you wonder that the story Of his
self sacrifice has led hundreds Of thou
sands to die for him? In one series Of
prosecutions over 200, 900 were put to-
death for Christ sake For him Blan-
dina was tied to post and wild beasts
were let out upon her, and when life
continued after the attack Of tooth and
paw she was put in net, and that net
containing her was thrown to a wild
bull that tossed her with its horns till
life was extinct All for Christ! Hugue-
nots diving for Christ Albigenses dying
for Christ The Vaudois dying for
Christ! Smithfeld fires endured for
Christ! The bones Of martyrs if distrlb-
uted, would make path of molderlng
life all around the earth. The loveliness
of the Saviour's sacrifice has inspired
all the heroiams and all the martyr
doms of subsequent centuries. Christ
has had more men and women die for
him than all the other inhabitants Of all
- I. i
Furthermore, he was lovely in his
sermons. He knew when to begin, when
to stop and just what to say. The long
est sermon he ever preached, so far as
the Bible reports him-namely, the SER
mon on the mount was about 16 min
utes in delivery-at the ordinary rate OF
speech. His longest prayer reported,
commonly called The Lords Prayer"
was about half a minute. Time them
by your own watch, and you will find
my estimate accurate, by which l do
not mean to say that sermons ought to
be only 1G minutes long and prayers
only half a minute long. Christ had
such infinite power Of compression that
he could put enough into his 16 minute
sermon and his half minute prayer to
keep all the following ages busy in
thought and action. No one but Christ
could afford to pray or preach as short
as that, but he meant to teach us COM
preston.
Christ's Sermons.
At Selma, Ala, the other day was