The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1896-05-01

ha ted Him. The whole earth seem
ingly turned into detective TO waSch
His steps. And yet He faced this r.
rocity. Notice that most OF Christ's
wounds were in front. Some scourg-
Ing on the shoulders. but most Of
Christ's wounds in front He was not
on retreat when He expired. Face TO
face with the worlds ferocity. Face
to face with the worlds sin.
Face to face with the worlds
woe. His eye on the raging
countenances Of His foaming antagon-
lists when He expired. When the
cavalry officer who roweled His steed
SO that He might come nearer up and
see the tortured visage of the suffer-
ing exile, Christ saw it. When the
spear was thrust at His side, and when
the hammer was lifted for His feet,
and when the reed was raised TO
strike deeper down the spikes OF
thorn. Christ watched the whole pro-
cedure. When His hands were
fastened to the cross they were
wide open, still with benedic-
ton. Mind you, His head was
not fastened; He 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 were In the palms OF
His hands; He saw them as plainly as
you ever saw anything in the palms OF
your hands. No ether, no chloroform,
no merciful anesthetic to dull or stupi-
fy, but, wide awake, He saw the OBJ
scuration of the heavens, the unbal-
ancing of the rocks, the countenances
quivering with rage and the cachln-
nation diabolic. Oh! it was the hos
tile as well as the barren island OF the
world
90 further, and tell you that this
exile was far from home. 1t is 95,0OO,-
600 miles from here so the sun, and all
astronomers agree in saying that our
solar system is only one OF the smaller
wheels Of the great machinery OF the
universe turning around some one
great center, the center SO far distant
it is beyond all Imagination and calcu-
lation, 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 home
sickness is when you have been only
few weeks absent from the domestic
circle. Christ was 80 years away from
home. Some of you feel inconsistencies
when you are 100 or 1000 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 it is to be homesick even. amid
pleasant surroundings, but Christ
slept in huts, and He was athirst, and
He was ahungered, 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 country,
at the sound of their national air get
SO homesick that they fall into melan-
choly and sometimes they die under
the inconsistencies. But, oh! the home
sickness of Christ. Poverty homesick
for celestial riches. Persecution home
sick for hosanna. WEAKNESS home
sick for rest. Homesick for angelic
and archangelic companionship. Home
sick to get out of the night and the
storm and the worlds execration.
Homesickness will make week seem
as long as month, and 1t seems to me
that the three decades of Christ's resi-
dence on earth must have seemed to
Him almost interminable. You often
tried to measure the other pangs OF
Christ, but you have never tried to
measure the magnitude and ponder
osity of Saviour's inconsistencies.
On 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 a
defoliaged tree without one leaf and
with only two branches, bearing fruit
of such bitterness as no human lips
had ever tasted. Oh! what an exile
starting in an infancy without any
cradle, and ending in assassination.
Thirst without any water Day with
out any sunlight. The doom of des-
perado for more than angelic excel
lence. For what that expatriation and
that exile? Worldly good sometimes
comes from worldly evil. The acct
dental glance of a sharp blade from a
razor-grinders's wheel put out the eye
of Gambetta and excited sympathies
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 20
years. Hawthorne, turned out of the
office of collector at Salem, went home
in despair. His wife touched him on
the shoulder and said: Now is the
L. Il ~