The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-04-04
THU CRUCIFlXION.
Tile Great Fast Day Of tbs Church
Calendar.
CELEBRATION OF GOOD FRIDAY IN
PORTLAND CHURCHES.

Yesterday-The Story of Calvary the
Theme of Good Friday Sermons
Brief Account of the Various Services.
Yesterday was Good Friday. The most
solemn day in the Christian year; the
anniversary of the tragedy of Cavalry,
the cruoifixion of the Christ
The day was appropriately observed in
many of the city churches, the services in
the Roman Catholic and Protestant
Episcopal churches being very imposing
and solemn. The clergy at the various
churches delivered eloquent and instruc-
tive addresses upon the most eloquent
fsubjects the world has ever known, the
story of the Cross
| AT St. Luke's Cathedral q solemn three
hours service was held beginning at IL
O'Clock in the morning. Morning prayer
was said with the special Psalms, and
the Epistle and Gospel of the day recited
by Dean Stills and Bishop Nicely. After
the gospel. Rev. Dwight Galloupe deliv-
cred brief address. He said in sub
| stance:
am to say just word of introduction
to the meditation on the Passion and
Cruoifxion which will begin at the mid
day hour-that hour when our Divine
Saviour was lifted up that He might
draw all men unto Him.
think wesnever appreci ate the dignity,
grandeur and divinity of the church as
much as when, in the midst of the vary
ing winds of doctrine which fill the
world, and which blow every way at
once-she stands and affirms by her en-
chanting creed some great and cardinal
truth.
The world is filled with the
voice of controversy, religion is con-
stantly invaded by the spirit of disinte-
grafton and soctionalism. Religious
teachers CRY, $40 here. F" and 10 there. {"
Men become bewildered. Religious
teachers often seem like tossing ship
driven hither and thither, as St. Peter
says, by every wind of doctrine.
But the church, like some tall light
house tower, stands calm and unmoyed,
sending out into the darkness and over
the wild waves of controversy the light
of eternal truth, and sounding ever her
| solemn bell of warning.
| 1t seems to be law of human nature
for men to go from one extreme to anoth-
er. In religion, as in all else, this is
true We need not go outside of our
own New England to see the wolking of
this Ia " of extreme.
A hundred and fifty years ago preachers
used to speak almost entirely of the death
of Christ. They said little of the pur-
pose of His life.
The sermons which Jonathan Edwards
preached to his Northampton congrega-
zion were full of the lurid light OF CAL
vary, but almost devoid of the living
CHRIST who walked and talked in Galilee.
Now we seem to have swung to the OPP
posite extreme. We hear much of the
living Christ, but little of the sacrifice
on the cross.
Thus the world loses sight Of the ay-
metry of the incarnation.
| We seem to have multitude of the
logical Christ, and Ethical Christ, and
| humanitarian and soeialtistic Christ.
redeemed the world by His most precious
blood? The doctrine of the atcnement is
not fashionable now. Its mystery con-
fuonds rationalists. Its ghostly gran
duel affronts the aesthetic. The glory
of the church Catholic is that it gives to
| men the whole Christ.
Multitudes today like Mary Magdalene
in the garden of the resurrection, are
wandering about in dark nesssand bswil-
| derment and they are saying to many
preacher: eye have taken awaystmy Lord
and | know not when ye have laid
| Him."
The church by the majestic procession
OF her ecclesiastical year reveals to the
world every side and phase of Christ.
She shows the aesthical side, theksocia-
| listic side, the humanitarian side and the
divine side. She breaches the living, the
crucified and the risen man of Nazareth.
Today we mediate on the lesson of the
GROSS. We hear again the old, old story of
| the "blood that cleanseth us from all sin. -
| With Simon the Cyrenian we travel
with the thorn crowned man of sorrows,
the Via Dolorosa and we try, like him, to
feel the burden of that cross. We stand
with the weeping woman and disciples
and gaze ut that born figure which
CLEANS against the lurii skies of that
again that far-off voice, "Father forgive
them, they know not what they do"
We do not try to explain or understand.
We only ponder and adore through the
mist of tears There is time to reason
and time for tears. The church asks
us today to lose our reason in tears as w 9
behold Him who by His death and pas
| sion made US at one with God.
May He give us true tears Of contrition
as We think on Bonded knee of how, "By
| lis agony and bloody sweat; by His
GROSS and passion by His previous death
and burial" has made possible His glor-
| ious resurrection and ascension, and the
coming of the Holy Ghost.
And if we me iitate with true tears
and love there shall come into our hearts,
| like an angels whisper, the ''peace which
passeth all understanding, uplifting and
| comforting US as nothing else can; max
| ing us one with Him by whose cross we
are raised, by whose resurrection we shall
| live, saved, bought, redeemed by his
most precious blood.
AT noon Bishop Neley began the deliv-
ering of his address upon the last seven,
saying of the Christ from the cross.
1.-"Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do"
2.-"Today shalt thou be with me in
Paradise"
3-"Woman behold thy son,-Son, be-
hold thy mother"
ss4.-"Eloi \ Eloi lama sabachthani?
"My God My God Why hast Thou forsak-
en- me?"
5-'I thirst. "