Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-04-28

ering crooked backs without any gang
of surgery, and standing whole choirs
of music along the silent galleries of q
deaf ear, and giving hoalthful nervous
system to cataleptics! Sympathy He
did not give them stoical advice CT phi
Josephine about the science Of griof. He
sat down and cried with them.
1t is spoken Of as the shcrtest verse
in the Bible, but to me it is about the
longest and grandest, Jesus wept."
All, many of US know the meaning of
thatl When we were in great trouble,
some ono came IL with yoluble consola-
ton and quoted the Scripture in q sort
of heartless way and did not help Us at
all. But after awhile some L else came
i'll, and without saying q wcrd sat down
and burst into O. food of tears at the
sight Of our VICE, and somehow it help
ed us right away. Jesus wept." You
see, it was deeply attached household,
that of Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
The father and mother were dead, and
the girls depended on their brother.
Lazarus had said to them: Now, Mary,
now, Martha, stop your worrying. Iwill
take care Of yoa. [ will be TO you both
father and mother. lily arm is strong.
Girls, you can depend on mel"
Comfort OF Tears.
But now Lazarus was sick-yea, Laz-
arus was dead. Ali broken up, tho sis
tiers sit disconsolate, and there is q knock
at tho door. ''Corsc Il, - says Martha.
Come in" says Mary. Christ entered,
and he just broke down. It was too much
for him. He had been so often and so
kindly entertained in that homo before
sickness and death devastated itthat he
choked up and sobbed aloud, and the
tears tricklcd down the sad face CT the
sympathetic Christ. "Jcsus wept."
Why do you rot try that mode Of help
ing? You cay, 81 am a man Of few
words" OF II I'm u woman Of few
words" Why, you dear soul, words arc
not necessary. Initiate your Lord and
go to those afflicted homes and cry with
them.
John Murphy Well, you did not
know him. Once, wEen I was il great
bereavement, he came TO my house.
Kind ministers of the gospel lad come
and talked beautifully ard prayed with
us and did all they could to console.
But John Murphy, enc of the best friends
| evor had, q big souled, glorious Irish
man, came in and looked into my3 face,
put out his broad, strong hand and said
not word, but sat down and cried with
US. l anu not enough of aphilosophcr to
say how it wa or whyit wGs, but ome
how from door to door and from floor
TO ceiling the room was filed with IN
all pervading comfort. Jesus wept."
] think that is what makes Christ
such a popular Christ. There are 50
many who want sympathy. Miss Fiskc,
the famous HISTORIAN missionary, was
in the chapel ono day talking to the
heather, and she was IN very poor health
and SO weak sho cat upon q mat while
she talked and felt the need Of come
thing to lean against, when she felt a
woman's form at her back and heard a
woman's voice saying, Lean on re"
She leaned a little, but did not want to
be too cumbersome, when the woman's
voice said, Lean hard; if you love nee,
lean hard"
And that makes Christ so lovely. He
wants all the sick and troubled and
weary to lean against him, end he says,
Lean hard; if you love me, lean herd"
Aye, he is close by with his synpathet-
ic help. Hedley Wears, the famous sol
dier 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 h~opefulness 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.
Aye, he was lovely il his doctrines.
Self sacrifice or the relief of the suffer-
ing of others by cur W suffering. He
was the only physician that even 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, a
scepter of unlimited dominion for q
prisoners box il an earthly courtroom,
a flashing tiara for a crown of stinging
brambles, a palace for a cattle pen, a
throne for a cross. Self sacrifice! What
is moro lovely? Mothers dying for their
children down with scarlet fever, rail
road engineers going down through
the open d~rawbridge to save the train,
firemen 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 IL series of
prosecutions oyer 200, 900 We're put to
death for Christ's sake. For him Blan-
dina was tied to a post and wild beasts
were let out upon her, and when life
continued after the attack Of tooth and
paw she was put in a net, ard that net
containing her was thrown to a wild
bull that tossed her with its horns till
life was extinct. All for Christi Hugue-
nots dying for Christ! Albigenses dying
for Christi The Vaudois dying for
Christi Smithfield fires endured for
Christ! The bones of martyrs, if distrib-
nted, would make a path of moldering
life all around the earth. The loveliness
of the S~ayiour's sacrifice has inspired
all the heroisms and ali the martyr
doms of subsequent centuries. Christ
has had more men and women die for
him than all the other inhabitants of all
the ages have had die for them.
Furthermore, he was lovely in his
sermons He knew whensto 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 I6 min
utes in deliyery-at the ordinary rate Of
speech. His longest prayer reported, +,