Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-04-28

CHRIST saw II. WAcl TIE soSAr was
thrust at his side, and when the ham,
rer was lifted for his feet. and when
the reed was raised to strike deeper
down the spikes of thorn, Christ
watched the whole procedure. When
his hands were fastened to the cross
they were wide open still with benedic-
ton. Mind you, his head was not fas-
tened; lie could look to the right and
he could look to the left. and he could
look up and he could look down. He
saw when the spikes had been driven
home, and the hard, round, iron heads
wero in the palms of his hands; he saw
them as plainly as you ever saw any
thing in the palms of your hands. NO
ether, no chloroform, no mercifui anes-
thetic to dull or stupefy, but. widea-
wake he saw the observation Of the
heavens, the unbalancing of the rocks,
the countenances quivering with rage
and the exclamation diabolic. on! IL
was the hostile as well as the barren
island of a world.
go further, and tell you that this
exile was far from home. 1t is ninety
five million miles from here to the sun,
and all astronomers agree in saying
that our solar system is only one OF
the smaller wheels Of the great ma
chinery of the universe turning around
some one great center, the center SO tar
distant it is beyond all imagination and
calculation and if, as some think, that
great center in the distance is heaven,
Christ came far from home when he
came here. Have you ever thought OF
the Inconsistencies of Christ? Some OF
you know what inconsistencies is when
you have been only a few weeks absent
from the domestic circle. Christ was
thirty-three years away from home.
Some of you feel inconsistencies when
you are hundred or thousand miles
away from the domestic circle. Christ
was more million miles away from
home than you could count if all your
life you did nothing but count. You
know what 1t is to be homesick even
amid pleasant surroundings, but Christ
slept in hurs, and he was athirst, and
he was a-hungered, and he was on the
way from being born in another mans
barn to being buried in another mans
grave.
have read how the Swiss, when
they are far away from their native
country, at the sound of the national
air get so homesick that they fall into
| melancholy and sometimes they die
under the homesickness. But oh. the
L 81 h,;c
sick for celestial riches. WEAKNESS
homesick for rest. Homesick for al
gelic and archangelic companionship.
Homesick to get out of the night and
the storm and the worlds execration.
Homesickness will make a week seem
as long as a month, and it seems to
me that the three decades Of Christ's
residence on earth must have seemed
to him almost interminable. You have
often tried to measure the other pangs
of Christ. but you have never tried to
measure the magnitude and ponderosity
of Saviours inconsistencies.
/ take step further and tell you
that Christ was in an exile which he
knew would end in assassination. Hol-
man Hunt, the master painter, has a
picture in which he represents Jesus
Christ in the Nazarene carpenter-shop.
Around him are the saws, the hammers,
the axes, the drills OF carpentry. The
picture represents Christ, as rising from
the carpenters working bench and
YEARLY stretching out his arms as one
will after being IN contracted or UNI
comfortable posture, and the light OF
that picture is so arranged that the
arms of Christ, YEARLY stretched forth,
together with his body. throw on the
wall the shadow of the cross. Oh! my
friends, that shadow was on everything
in Christs's lifetime. Shadow OF
cross on the Bethlehem swaddling
clothes. Shadow Of cross on the road
over which the three fugitives fed into
Egypt. Shadow of a cross en- Lake
Galilee as Christ walked its mosaic
floor of opal and emerald and crystal.
Shadow of cross on the road to En-
maus. Shadow of a cross on the brook
Kedron, and on the temple, and on the
side Of Olivet. Shadow of cross on
sunrise and sunset. Constantine, march,
ing with his army, saw just once
cross in the sky. but Christ saw the
cross all the time.
Or a rough journey we cheer our
selves with the fact that it will end in
warm hospitality; but Christ knew that
his rough path would end at defoliag-
ed tree without one leaf and with only
two branches, bearing fruit of such bit
terness as no human lips had ever tast-
ed On what an exile-starting in an
infancy without any cradle, and end
ing in assassination. Thirst without
any water. Day without any sunlight.
The doom of desperate for more than
angelic excellence. For what that ex-
patriation and that exile? Worldly good
sometimes comes from worldly evil.
The accidental glance of sharp blade
from raZor-grinder's wheel put out
the eye of Gambetta and excited sym
pathies which gained him an education
and started him on a career that made
his name more majestic among
Frenchmen than any other name in
the last twenty years. Hawthorne,
turned out of the Office of collector, at
Salem, went home in despair. His
wife touched him on the shoulder and