Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1896-09-28
GATE OF CARBUNCLE.
1T COMES BEFORE THE GATE OF
PEARL

Trial Comes IcCfore Heavenly Satisfac-
tion-A Sermon appropriate TO Indi-
viduaI and National Circumstances.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27.-From q neg
Iected text and one to most people IN
known Rev. DR.. Ialmage this morning
produces q sermon appropriate to indi
vidual and national circumstances. The
subject was Coates Of Carbuncle, - the
text being Isaiah Iiv, u, land I will
make thy windows Of agates and thy
gates Of carbuncles. -
Perhaps because q human disease Of
most painful and 0fttimes fatal charac-
ter is named after it 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 apocalyptic
vision masOHed 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 q 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 30 fame.
God sets is high up in Bible crystal
Biography. He cuts it with divine CHS
eI, shapes it with q precise geometry
and kindles its fire into an almost su-
pernaturaI flame Of beauty. It's law of
symmetry, its law Of zones, it's law Of
parallelism, something to excite the
amazement Of the scientist, chime the
cantos of the poet and arouse the adora-
ton 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 III the first row
of the high priest S breastplate in olden
time and higher up than the onyx and
the emerald and the diamond, and III
Ezekiel's prophecies cCaccrning the
splendors Of the Tyrian court the car
buncle is mentioned, The brilliancies Of
the walls and Of the tesseIated floors
suggested by the Bible sentence, ''Thcu
hast walked up and down in the midst
Of the st0ne5-Of fire. - But in my text
1t is not solitary specimen that l hand
you, as the keeper of a museum might
take down from the shelf q precious
stone and allow you to examine it, nor
is it the panel of q door that you might
stand and study for its unique carvings
or bronzed traceries, but there is whole
gate Of IL lifted before our admiring
and astounded vision; aye, two gates Of
it; aye, many gates CT it, 81 will make
thy gates Of carbuncles" What gates?
Gates of tho church. Gates Of anything
worth possessing. Gates Of successful
enterprise. Gates Of salvation. Gates Of
national achievement. Isaiah, whc
wrote this text, wrote also all that
about Christ Gas the lamb to the slaugh-
ter, " and spcko Of Christ as saying, 81
have trod tho 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 carmino 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 ard cantafa and
triumphal procession .eend everlasting
holiday and kiss C Ia ion, and so the
10 gates are L. pearls and could be moth
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 are on each gate, and
as he 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 Of those gates as gates Of carbun-
Gle.
Suffering For others.
What an odd thing it is, think some,
this idea OF vicarious suffering or suffer
ing for Others Not at all. The world
has seen vicarious suffering millions Of
times before Christ came and demon
strated it OH q 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 IN
cover their heads and 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
heart Suffering for others? Why, the
world is full Of it. Jump said the
engineer to the fireman on the locomo-
tive. Zone Of US is enough to die.
Jump!" And so the engineer died at
his post, trying to save the train. When
this summer the two trains crashed into