Connecticut western news., 1896-10-01
GATE OF CARBUNCLE.
IT CONES BEFORE THE GATE OF
 PEARL


 Trial Comes Before Heavenly satisfac-
 tion-A Sermon Appropriate to Indi-
 viduAl and National Circumstances.
 WAsHNGroN, Sept a7.-From a neg leoted text and one to most people un- known Rev. Dr. 1almage this morning produces a sermon appropriate to indi- vidoal and national circumstances. The subject was "Gates of Carbuncle," the text being Isaiah liv, 1a, And will make thy windows of agates and thy gates of cartuncles.
 Perhaps because a human disease of most painful and ofttimes fatal charac- ter is named after 1t the church and the world have never done justice to that intense and all suggestive precious stone, the carbuncle. The pearl that Christ picked up to illustrate his ser mon. and the jasper and the sapphire and the amethyst which the apocalyptio vision masoned into the wall of heaven have had proper recognition. but this. in all the ages, is the first sermon on the carbuncle,
 This precious stone is found in the East Indies, in color is an intense scar let and held up between your eye and the sun it is a burning coal. The poet puts it into rhythm as he writes:
 Like to the burning coal whence comes its
 name,
 Among the Greeks as Anthrax known to fame.
 God sets it high up in Bible crystal lography. He cuts 1t with a divine chis- el. shapes 1t with precise geometry and kindles it's fire into an almost su- pernatural 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 adora- tion of the Christian. No one but the infinite God could fashion carbuncle as large as your thumb nail, and as if to make all ages appreciate this precious stone he ordered it set in the first row of the high priests breastplate 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 car buncle is mentioned, the briliancies of the walls and of the tesselated 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 solitary specimen that hand you, as tho keeper of museum might take down from the shelf precious stone and allow you to examine 1t, nor is it the panel of door that you might stand and study for it's unique carvings or bronzed traceries, but there is a whole gate of it lifted before our admiring and astounded vision; aye, two gates of it; aye, many gates of it, II will make thy gates of carbuncles. What gates? Gates of the church. Gates of anything worth possessing. Gates of successful enterprise. Gates of salvation. Gates of national achievement. Isaiah, who wrote this text wrote also all that about Christ as the lamb to the slaugh- tel" and spoke of Christ as saying, "I have trod the wine press alone" and wrote. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Boz rah?" And do you think that Isaiah in my text merely happened to represent the gates as red gates, as carmine gates, as gates of carbuncle? No. He means that it is through atonement, through blood red struggle, through agonies, we get into anything worth getting into.
 Heavens gates may we'll be made of pearl, bright, pellucid, cheerful crys- utilization, because all the struggles are over and there is beyond those gates nothing but raptures and cantata and triumphal procession and everlasting holiday and kiss of reunion, and so the 12 gates are 12 pearls and could be noth- ing else than pearls. But Christ hoist ed the gates of pardon in his own blood, and the marks of eight fingers and two thumbs arc on each gate, and as ho lifted the gate it leaned against his forehead and took from it crimson impress, and all those gates are deeply dyed, and Isaiah was right when he spoke of those gates as gates of carbun- cle.
 Suffering For Others-
 What m odd thing 1t is. think some, this idea of yicarious suffering or suffer ing for others. Not at all. The world has seen vicarious suffering millions of times before Christ came and demon ssrated it on scale that eclipsed all that went before and all that shall come after. Rachel lived only long enough after the birth of her son to give him a 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 Bethel un- cover their heads ard stand reverently 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 recre- ancy stab clear through the mothers s heart Suffering for others? Why, the world is full of it "Jump" said the engineer to the fireman on the locomo- tive. "One of us is enough to die. Jumpr And so the engineer died at his post, trying to save the train. When this summer the two trains crashed into each other near Atlantic City, among the Al who lost their lives the engineer was found dead with one hand on the throttle of the locomotive and the other on the brake. Aye, there are hundreds Eere today suffering for others You know and Gcd knows that 1t is vicari- GUS sacrifice. But on one limestone hill about twice the height of this church, five minutes walk from the gates of Jerusalem, was the sublimest case of suffering fer others that the world ever saw or ever will see. Christ the victim, human and satanic malevolence the exc cutioner, the whole human race having an overwhelming interest in the specta- cle. To open way for us sinful men and sinful women into glorious pardon and high hope and eternal exaltation. Christ, with hand dripping with the rush of opened arteries. swung back the gate, and beholdl it is red gate, a gate of deepest hue, gate of carbuncle.
 What is true ill spirituals is true in temporals. There are young men and older men who hope, through the right tia 0f he