The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-04-04

a sting, for the sting of death is sin,
and He was sinless. He had shrunk
from it as q rarely sensitive nature, car
rying it's nerves on the surface, will al
ways shrink. But even that shrinking
was largely conquered, and Me calmly
waited it as the last indignity regnant
bigotry could put upon Him. The truth
in all its full, Virile richness; the mind
of God, as He knew it, had been reveal
ed. The hour for sacrifice had struck.
The cross was ready. He had a bap-
tism to be baptised with and He
was straightened until it was accomp-
lished, There was no more to be said;
the word must be established on the
hill yonder He came with words;
great, golden words, the like of which
We're never heard before. But He had
spoken; He must seal His testimony
with His blood. This is the impressive,
significant thing about His attitude. 1t
has an eXhortation for this babbling
age of ours 1t cries across the years:
80 We disciples of His! wrangle no long
err with the Sanhedrim. Ye have
spoken truth. The hour for sacrifice
has struck, the world needs your life
that supreme Gift which consummates
testimony This seems, so far as l
can read the heavens. the sign of the
time. The world waits for us to go
up on Calvary for the sacrifice, the
cross, the dying Let us not linger to
dispute when the cross is ready.
The clear eye of Jesus saw this truth.
1t was by His uplifting, the deep de
votion OF His dying, that the world
was to be drawn to Him. The uplifting
was the proof of preaching. And since
He loved His own to the utmost limit
of loves demand, He was eager for
that The church has followed her
Lord, going about Galilce proclaiming
the kingdom; into the upper room OBJ
serving His reverent forms, and some
times washing the disciples feet; into
the presence of the council. But she
has stopped there to dispute, and define,
and interpret; she has shrunk from Cal
vary. The hour for sacrifice has
struck. Sacrifice of time of service, of
gold-and what Is harder--of opinion
If we would draw the world with ir-
resistible fascination we must love it
to the end, we must go up to the cross.
/ may be wrong, but this thought con-
/ cannot shake it off. | see Him there,
speech ended; the cross ready. He had
what we must have if we cherish
thought of pushing on His work.
1.-THE deep religion of thankful heart,
Which rests instinctively in heaven S
clear law
With a full peace, that never can de-
part
From its own steadfastness-a holy
awe
For holy things"
| Quoted by Annie Elliott in White
Birches.)
| The hottest thing in the universe to
| him was sacrificial love. He stood there
| with holy awe and thankful heart,
knowing it was granted him to make
| full proof of ministry; to crown and
| consummate his long manifestation of
| love with loves divinest test | have
sometimes thought that only his body
| stood there; his mind was far away
| busy with the triumph that was to be.
| For he had reached the altitude where
| death--such death--Was triumph. His
! soul was deaf to the clamor of trifling
| tongues busted in swearing away his
| life: it was looking down the years,
seeing, more clearly than Paul after
ward saw, how God would highly exalt
| his name and bend all knees before its
majesty His silence was the stiffness
| of an exalted exultant spirit bowling
before the invisible God, looking beyond
| death, A spirit that had gotten above
| questions of gain and loss, pain and
| death, and was only intent on fulfilling
| destiny. Call it enthusiasm-what you
| will; fanaticism, if you please 1t was
| that high spiritual condition to which
rare natures sometimes come when the
| spirit seems detached from the body,
and nothing is Of value save the vision
| of far-off glories, brought nigh by faith.
| And was he wrong? There is no better
answer than the words the great Lowell
| left us:
Therefore. great heart, bear up! Thou
| art but type
| Of what all lofty spirits endure, that
fain
| Would win men back to strength and
| peace through love:
Each hath his lonely peak, and on each
4 heart
Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears life
long
With vulture beak; yet the high soul
| is left;
! And faith, which is but hope grown
wise, and love
| And patience which at last shall over
come"
|