The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1896-04-29
+, as some think, that

came here. Have you ever thought
of the homesickness Of Christ? Some
Of yol know what homesickness is
when yoa have been onlya few weeks
absent from the domestic circle Christ
was 33 Years away from home. Some
Of YOU feel homesickness when you
are 100 or LOCO miles away from the
domestic circle. Christ was more mll-
Ion miles away from home than you
could count in your life YOU did moth
ing but count. You know what 1t Is
20 be homesich even amid pleasant
surroundings. bat Christ slept IN huts,
and he was athirsJ aud he was a-hun
sered, and he was ou the way IRON
being bora IN another man Darn 70
being buried Ia another man grave.
I nave read how the Swiss, when
they are far away from tnelr natlVe
country. at the sound Of their national
air get so homesick that they fall into
melancholy and sometimes they d'e
under the iomesickness. But, Oh, the
honesickness Of Christ. Poverty
honesick for celestial riches. Persecu
ton homesick for hosanna. Wearl.
ness homesick for the rest. HomaSlck
forangelic and archangelic compan-
ionship. Homesick to get out of the
light and the storm and the world S
execration. Homesickness will make
a week seem as longas month and II
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 a Savlour's home
sickness.
take step farther and tell you
that Christ was in an exile which he
knew would end in assassination.
Holman Hunt, the master ptlnter. has
a picture in which he represents Jesu,
Christ Ia the Nazarene carpenter shop
Around him are the saws, the ham
mers, the axes, the drills of carpentry.
The picture represents Christ as rising
from the carpenters working bench
and wesrily stretching out his arms as
one will after being in contracted or
uncomfortable 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 Christ's lifetime. Shadow OF 8 cross
% the Bethlehem swaddling clothes;
shadow OF cross on the road over
which the three fugitives fled into
Egypt shadow Of cross on Lake Cali
lee as Christ walked its mosaic floor
OF opal and emerald and crystal; sha-
dow of cross on the road to Emmans
shadow Of a cross on the brook kedron,
and on the temple, and on the side Of
Olivet; shadow Of "a cross on sunrise
and sunset. Constantine, marching
with his army, saw just once a cross III
the sky, but Christ saw the cross all
the time.
On 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 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 a des.
perado for more than angelic excel.
leuce. For what that expiration and
exile? Worldly good sometimes comes
from worldly evil. The accidental
glance of sharp blade from razor
grinders wheel put out the eye Of
Gambetta and excited sympathies
which gained him an education and
started MIN ou q career that made his
name more majestic among French
men 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 time to write your book" and
his famous Scarlet Letter" was the
brilliant consequence.
Worldly good sometimes comes
from worldly evil Then be not un.
believing when l tell you that from
greatest crime of all eternity and OF
the whole universe, the murder Of the
Son of God, there shall come results
which shall eclipse all the grandeurS
of eternity past and eternity to come.
Christ, an exile from heaven opening
the way for the deportation toward
heaven and to heaven of all those
who will accept the proffer. Atone,
ment, ship large enough to take all
the passengers that will come aboard
it.
For this royal exile I oespeak the
love and service OF all the exiles here
present, and, in one sense or the other,
that includes all of US. The gates of
this continent have been so widely
opened that there are here many vol
untary exiles from other lands. Some
of you are Scotchmen. | see it in
your high cheek bones and in the
color that iilumines your face when [
mention the land of your nativity.
Bonny Scotland, Dear old kirk! Some
of your ancestors sleeping in Grey
friars churchyard, or by the deep
lochs filed out of the pitchers of heav-
en-. or under the heather, sometimes
so deep of color it makes one think OF
the blood of the Covenanters who
signed their names for Christ, dipping
their pens into the veins of their own
arms opened for that purpose. How
every fiber of your nature thrills as
mention the names of Robert Bruce
and the Campbells and Cochrane. l
bespeak for this royal exile of my
text the love aud the service OF all
Scotch exiles. Some of you are Eng
lishmen. Your ancestry served the
Lord. Have l not read of the suffer
ings of the Haymarket2 And have I
not seen in Oxford the very spot
where Ridley and Iatjn1er rnO1nted