Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1896-10-16

Perhaps because q human disease OF most
painful and ofttimes fatal characters named
after it, the church and the world have never
done justice to that intense and all-suggestive
precious stone, the carbunce. The pearl
that Christ picked up to illustrate His SER
mon, and the jasper and the sapphire and
the amethyst which the apocalyptic vision
masoned into the wall Of heaven have had
proper recognition, but this in all the ages,
Is the first sermon on the carbunc,e.
This precious stone is found in the East
Indies. in color is m intense scarlet, and
held up between your eye and The sun it is e
burning coal. The poet puts 1t into rhythm
as he writes:
Like to the burning coal whence comes its
Among the Greeks as Anthrax known to
fame.
God sets it high up in Bible crystaTlography.
He cuts it with divine chisel, sharpels 1t
with precise geometry, and kindleS its fire
into an almost supernatural flame Of beauty
Its law OF symmetry, its law of zones, its law
of parallelism, something TO excite the
amazement of the scientist. chime the cantos
OF the poet and arouse the alteration of the
Christian. No one but the in1nite God could
fashion carbuncle as large as your thumb
nail, and as if TO make all ages appreciate
the first row of the high priests breast plate
in olden time and higher up than the onyx
and the emerald and the diamond, and In
Ezekiel's prophecies concerning the splendors
of the Tyrian court the carbuncle is mSn-
toned, the briliancies of the walls and OF
the tassellated floors suggested by the Bible
sentence: Thou hast walked up and down
in the midst of the stones Of fire" But in
my text it is not a solitary specimen that
A, - ofrrhf
take down from the shelf n precious
it. Nor is it in the panel OF q
door that you might stand AMI study for its
unique carvings or bronzed traceries, but
there is whole gate OF IL lifted before our
admiring and astounded vision, ayeI two
gates of it, aye! many gates of il: 81 will
make thy gates OF carcuncles." What gates?
Gates of the Church. Gates OF anything
worth possessing. Gates Of successful en-
terprlse. Gates Of salvation. Gates OF Ma
tional achievement. Isaiah, who wrote this
text, wrote also all that about Christ "as the
lamb of the slaughter" and spoke OF Christ
as saying, III have trod the wine press alone"
and wrote, "Wbo is this that cometh from
Edom. with dyed garments from Bozrah?"
And do you think that Isaiah III my text
merely happened to represent the gates as
red gates, as carmine gates as gates Of car
buncle? No. He means that Is through
atonement, through blood-red struggle,
through agonies we get into anything worth
getting into. Heavens gates may welt be
made Of pearl, bright, pellucid, cheer I'll
crysalization, because all the struggles are
over and there Is beyond those gates nothing
but raptures and cantata and triumphal pro-
cession and everlasting holiday and kiss of
reunion, and so the twelve gates are twelve
pearls, and could be nothing less than pearls.
But Christ hOisted the gates OF pardon In His
own blood, and the marks OF eight fingers
and two thumbs are on each gate, and as Ho
lifted the gate it leaned against His forehead
and took from it q crimson impress. and all
those gates are deeply dyed, and Isaiah Was
right when he spoke Ct these gates as gates
of carbuncle.
What an odd thing it is, think some, this
idea of yicarious suffering or suffering for
others! Not at ALL The world had seen vi
carious suffering millions of times before
Christ came and demonstrated ii on scale
that ecipsed all that went before and all that
shall come after. Rachael lived only long
enough after the birth of her son to give him
name. In faint whisper she said, Call
him Ben-oni." which means ''son OF my
pain" and all modern travellers on the road
from Jerusalem to Betheluncover their heads
and stand reyerentlY at the tomb OF Rachel
who died for her boy. But in all ages how
many mothers die for their children, and in
many cases grown up children, who by re-
creancy stab clear through the mothers
heart! Suffering for others? Why, the world
is full Of it. Jump said the engineer to
the fireman on the locomotive. zone of
us is enough to die. Jump" And so the
engineer died at his post trying to save the
train. When .ais summer the two trains
crashed into each other near Atlantic City,
among the forty-seven who lost their lives,
the engineer was found dead with one hand
on the throttle OF the locomotive and the
other on the brake. Ayel there are hum
dreds here to-day suffering for others. You
know and God knows it is vcarious sacri-
fee. But on one limestone hill about twice
the height Of this church. five minutes walk
from The gates of Jerusalem. was the SUBJ
FINEST case OF suffering for others that the
world ever saw or ever will see. Christ the
victim, human and satanic maevolence the
executionpr, the whole human race having
an overwhelming interest in the spectacle.
To open a way for US sinful men and sinful
women into glorious pardon and high hope
and eternal cxuItation, Christ with hand
dripping with the rush of opened arteries,
swung back the gate, and behold! it is Il red
gate, a gate OF deepest hue, gate OF car
buncle.
morals. There ar5 young men al older
men wh0-h0pe, through the settlement OF
this acrid controversy between silver and
gold. or the oimetIllic quarrel, that 1t will
become easy to make u living. That time
will never come. 1t never has been easy 10
make living. The men who have it very
easy now, went through 'hardships and SELL
denias to which most young men would
never consent. Unless they got 1t by inheri"
lance, you cannot mention twenty-five men
who have come 10 honorable fortune that
did not fight their way, inch by inch, and
against fearful odds that again and again al
most DESTROYED them. For some good rea-
son God has arranged it for all the centuries
that the only way for most people to get
livelihood for themselves and their families
is with both hands and all the allied forces
of body. mind and soul to push back ana
push open the red gate, the gate OF carbun-
Gle. For the benefit of all young men, Ii L
had the time. | would call the roll of those
who oyercame obstacle. How many OF the
mighty men who went one way on Pennsyi-
vania avenue and. reached the United States
Senate or walked the other way on Pennsy-
vania avenue and reached the white House,
did not have to climb over Political ooIoquyi
Not one How much scorn ana scou. anu
brutal attack did Horace Mann endure be-
tween the time when he first began to light
for better common school system in Massa-
chusetts, and the day when statue in honor S,o
Of him was placed on the steps Of the State
House overlooking "The Commons?
Read the biography of Roban Hall, the
Baptist preacher, who, though he had been
pronounced a Ounce Il school, lived to thrill
The world with his Christian eloguence; anu
of George Peabody, who never owed car
riage and denied himself all iuxtrlrs that
he might while living and after death,
through last will and testament, &C.
- b;c rnooun+ed milIjons 10 the