The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1896-04-22

Lne reeu was raised 10 bJrlhe uSSpSN 4
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-
tion. 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 anesthet to dull or stupefy,
but, wide awake, He saw the obscura-
tion of the heavens, the unbalancing OF
the rock, the countenances quivering
with rage, and the cachinnation dia-
bolic. Oh! it was the hostile as well
as the barren island OF world.
l go further, and tell you that this
exile was far from home. 1t is 95,OOO,-
900 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 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 homesickness of Christ? Some of
you know what homesicl1ness is when
you have been only few weeks absent
from the domestic circle. Christ was
SO years away from home. Some of
u 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 it is to be homesick even
amid pleasant ntsurroundings, 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.
l have read how the Swiss, when they
are far away from their native country,
at the sound of their national air get
so homesic1 that they fall into melan-
choly and sometimes they die under the
homesickness. But oh! the homesick-
ness of Christ Poverty homesick for
celestial riches. Persecution homesick
for hosanna. WEAKNESS homesick for
rest. Homesick for angelic and arch
angelic 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 Christs 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 Sa.
viour's inconsistencies.
take step further and tell you that
Christ was in an exile which he knew
would end in assassination. Holman
Hunt, the master painter, has picture
in which he represents Jesus Christ il
the Nazarene carpenter shop. Arount
Him are the saws, the hammers, the
axes, the drills of carpentry. The pic
;ture represents Christ as rising from
the carpenters working bench ant
,wearily stretching out His arms as onC
will after being in contracted or un
comfortable posture, and the light o
that picture is SO arranged that thu
arms of Christ, wearily stretched for tn
together with His body, throw on thu
wall the shadow of the cross. Oh! my
friends, that shadow was on every
thing in Christ's lifetime Shadow o
q cross on the Bethlehem swaddlinI
clothes. Shadow of a cross on the roat
over which the three fugitives fed into
Egypt. Shadow of cross on LAX
Galilee MS Christ walked it's mosaic foo
of opal and emerald and crystal
Shadow of cross on the road to En-
, maus. Shadow of cross on the brool
Kedron, and on the temple, and on tn
side of Olivet. Shadow of cross oi
sunrise and sunset. Constantine
marching with his army, saw just ono
q cross in the sky, but Christ saw tn
cross all the time.
On rough journey we cheer our
, selves with the fact that it will end il
: warm hospitality; but Christ knew tina
/ His rough path would. end in defoli
age tree without one leaf and with onl
two branches bearing fruit of sue
bitterness as no human lips had eve
, tasted. Oh! what an exile-startinJ
in an infancy without any cradle, anC
, ending in assassination. Thirst with
out any water. Day without any sur
; light. The doom of desperate fo
? more than angelic excellence. Fo
| what that expatriation and that exile
Worldly good sometimes comes fror
, worldly evil. The accidental glance c
, a sharp blade from razor-grinder'
wheel put out the eye of Gambett
{ and excited sympathies which game
him an education and started him o
a a career that made his nam
, more majestic among Frenchme
than any other name in the las
/ twenty years, Hawthorne, turned ou
: of the office of collector, at Salem, wen
4 home in despair. His wife touche
t him on the shoulder and said, "Now
the time to write your book, and hi
: famous Scarlet Letter" was the bri
{ liant consequence. Worldly good som'
r times comes from worldly evil. The
3 be not unbelieving when / tell yo
a that from the greatest crime of a
$ eternity and of the whole universe, VI
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