The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1896-09-24
THE COLUMBIAN.
BLOOMSBURY. PA.
THE VISION OF THE CHRIST,


sermon of Rev. NJ +. McLinn pastor
of the Evangelical Lutheran church
last Sunday morning and was based
upon the 10th verse of the attn chap
ter Of John. "Jesus said unto her |
that speak unto you am he"
II is the unexpected that comes to
pass. Is not life after all, filled with
glad surprises In the midst of the
pain, the loss, the danger, there is
waiting at our very doors, blessed
relief; the hope and assurance of
which through our faith, ought to
light up the sad countenance, fill the
heart with JOY, and communicate
strength and patience to do and to
bear. No more impressive or beauti-
full picture is in all the Bible than
this then as now, it is the same
every day duty, the same walk to the
well, the same expectation of the
same monotonons round of work and
toll and drugdery until we almost
rebel or despair. But see Heaven
comes down to earth with some of its
brightness, its solace. Some intima-
tions of its perfect rest Would these
glimpses and blessings be quite SO sweet
were it not tor that same toll and
trouble which prepares us to appreci-
ate them
The old heather idea of the Ly-
caonians the gods are come down
to us in the likeness of men " Is there
glorious reality. There on the curb
of the well, awaiting her coming, sits
weary traveller who needs a draft of
the refreshing water 1t is the Son
Of the most High Around Him
gathers the awe and majesty of the
eternal God and yet looking out
through those pure eyes is all the
tenderness of Him who is the Soul of
compassion, kindness and love , In
this same waiting One dwells all the
fullness Of the Godhead bodily and in
return for the simple drink which she
can give to him. He will bring the
living water-the new, the Joyous the
satisfying to her and she shall never
thirst again because that water shall
be in her springlng up into everlasting
life.
She is to have glad surprise, a
peculiar gift and is to go home again
no, not home but to the scenes and
surroundings Of sin, with its fearful
monotony of evil not indeed bearing
a pitcher OF that water which would
only let the thirst come again but to
find stealing in upon her soul the
beams of wonderous peace and
purity and JOY like the frightening
dawn Of some glad morning, She
should pass out of darkness into light
out of the old into the new
What contrast the sinner and
the Savior the unclean Samaritan,
despised for the mingled blood in her
veins as well as for her sins, and near
her the pure spotless Jesus and yet
those contrasts are frequent in the
history of his life as he met the
leprous, the paralytic, the possessed
the wretched, the dying and sent them
forth wonderfully cleansed and deliv.
cred and those contacts are seen
now in these days as the sinful the
vile the enslaved by evil meet Jesus,
the Savior and are saved by his
mighty power What can be SO
much needed in these times as that
Christ shall stand before us-a
Revelation of Jesus to the soul ?
That the scales which have so
long covered the eyes shall fall and
those to our opened vision the Christ
shall appear in His lovelinesss as
we'll as His hatred of sin.
The Christ is coming not only to
"Chicago " but to Washington and
every state capitol, and before every
ruler and officer of the land and say
like to the mighty waves of the sea,
thus far shall the corruption, and
greed, and avarice go, but there shall it
be stayed that the beautiful prayer Thy
Kingdom Come, may not be either
poetry or sentiment but an actual fact
in purified government; so with society
that the blasphemy and the unclean-
ness and the crime shall be purged
away and society and home shall be
both more fitting types of Heaven,
The danger is that this same Jesus
may be hidden by the very words
through which we would make him
known--"preaching teaching and
talking about what Jesus did and said
and thought, neglecting the person
and character Of Jesus Himself until
the Master is lost in His environment. "
Not oratory, not philosophy, not the
ology even, not science, not discussion