The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1895-09-13

ices. and are, after awhile, going to
preach Jesus Christ: You will have the
largest liberty and unlimited resource.
own way.
Brighter than the light, fresher than
the fountains, deeper than the seas.
are all these gospel themes. Song has
no melody, flowers no sweetness, sunset
sky no color, compared with these glo-
rious themes. These harvests of grace
spring up quicker than we can sickle
them. Kindling pulpits with their fire
and producing revolutions with their
power, lighting up dying beds with
their glory, they are the sweetest
thought for the poet, and they are the
most thrilling illustration for the ora
tor, and they offer the most intense
scene for the artist, and they are to
the ambassador of the sky all enthusi-
asm; complete pardon for direst guilt;
sweetest comfort for ghastliest agony;
brightest hope for grimmest death;
grandest resurrection for darkest
sepulchre. Oh, what a gospel to preach!
Christ the Chief! His birth, his suffer-
ing, His miracles, His sweat, His tears,
His blood, His atonement, His interces-
sion-what glorious themes! Do we eX-
ercise faith? Christ is it's object. Do
we have love? 1t fastens on Jesus.
Have we a fondness for the church?
1t is because Christ died for it. Have
we a hope Of heaven? 1t is because
Jesus went there, the herald and the
f%orerunner. The royal robe of Deme-
trius was so costly, SO beautiful, that
after he had put it off no one ever dared
to put it on. But this robe of Christ,
richer than that, the poorest and the
weakest and the worst may wear.
Where sin abounded, grace may much
more abound"
"Oh, my sins, my sins" said Martin
Luther to Staupiz, "my sins, my sins!"
The fact is that the brawny German
student had found a Latin bible that
made him quake, and nothing else yer
did make him quake; and when ne
found how, through Christ, he was par
doned and saved he wrote to a friend,
saying: Come over and join us great
and awful sinners, saved by the grace
of God. You seem to be only a slender
sinner, n you don't much eXtol the
mercy of God; but we that have been
such very awful sinners praise His
grace the more now that we nave been
redeemed" Can it be that you are so
desperately egotistical that you feel
yourself in first-rate spiritual trim, and
that from the root of the hair to the
tip OF the toe you are scar
less and immaculate? What you need
is a looking-glass, and here it is in the
Bible. Poor and wretched and miser-
able and blind and naked from the
crown of the head to the sole of the
foot, full of wounds and purifying
sores. No health in us. And then
take the fact that Christ gathered up
all the notes against us and paid them,
and then offered us the receipt! And
how much We need him in our sor-
rows! We are Independent of circum-
stances if we have His grace. Why,
He made Paul sing in the dungeon,
and under that grace St. John from
desolate Patmos heard the blast of the
apocalyptic trumpets. After all other
candles have been sWluffed out, this is
the light that gets brighter and bright
er unto the perfect day; and after, I'M
der the hard hoofs of calamity, all the
pools of worldly enjoyment have been
trampled into deep mire, at the foot
of the eternal rock, the Christian, from
the cups of granite, lily-rimmed, puts
out the thirst of his soul.
Again 1 remark that Christ is chief
in dying alleviations. I have not any
sympathy with the morbidity abroad
about our demise. The Emperor of
Constantinople arranged that on the
day OF his coronation the stone mason
should come and consult him about the
tombstone that after awhile he would
need. And there are men who are mon
omaniacal on the subject of departure
from this life by death, and the more
they think of it the less they are pre-
pared to go. This is an unmanliness
not worthy Of you, not worthy of me.
Saladin, the greatest conqueror of
his day, while dying, ordered that the
tunic he had on him be carried after
his death on his spear at the head of
his army, and then the soldier, ever
and anon, should stop and say: BE
hold all that is left of Saladin, the EN-
peror and conqueror! Of all the states
he conquered, OF all the wealth he
| accumulated, nothing did he retain but
this shroud." I nave no sympathy with
such behavior, or such absurd lemon
straticn, or with much that we hear
uttered in regard to departure from
this life to the next. There is a COM
~monsensical idea On this subject that
you need to consider-there are only
two styles of departure. A thousand
feet underground, by light Of torch,
toiling in a miners shaft, a ledge of
rock may fall upon us, and we may die
a miners death. Far out at sea, fall
ing from the slippery ratlines and
broken on the billiards, we may die a
sailors death. On mission of mercy in
hospital, amid broken bones and reek-
ing leprosies and raging fevers,we may
IL H.