The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1896-05-01

! ing exile, NnrlSt saw IL. W hen 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 tho spikes of
thorn, Christ watched the whole pro-
cedure. When His hands were
fastened ID 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 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 cachin-
nation dia bolic Obi it was the hos
tile as well as the barren island of the
world.
go further. and tell you that this
exile was far from home. 1t Is 95, ,000,-
900 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,
ia
He came here. Have you ever
thought of the homesickness of Christ?
Some of you know what home
sickness Is when You have been only
few weeks absent from the domestic
circle. Christ was SO years away from
homo. Some of you feel honesickness
when you ure 100 or 1000 miles awny
from the domestic circle. Christ was
more million miles away from homo
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 homesickness. But, OIL the home
sickness of Christ. Poverty homesick
for celestial riches. Persecution home
sick for hosanna. WEAKNESS home
sick for rest. Homesiclx 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 it 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.
l take a step further and tell you
that Christ was 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 ham,
mers, the axes, the drills of carpentry. |
The picture represents Christ as rising /
from the carpenters working bench |
and wearily stretching out His arms
as one will after being in contracted |
or uncomfortable posture, AMI the |
light of that picture is 50 arranged |
that the arms of Christ wearily |
aA.s J, Ys-h
throw on the wall the shadow of the |
cross. Oh! my friends. that shadow
was on everything In Christ's lifetime.
Shad ow of cross on the Bethlehem
clothes. Shadow of cross
on the road over which the three fugi-
tives fed into Egypt. Shadow of a
cross on Lake Galilce as Christ walked |
its mosaic floor of opal and EN- erald |
and crystal. Shadow of cross on the
brook Kedron, and on the temple, and
on the side of Olivet. Shadow of a
cross on sunrise and sunset. Constan-
tine, marching with his army. saw just
once a cross in the sky, but Christ saw
the cross all the time
On rough journey we cheer our
selves with the fact that it viii end in
warm hospitality; but Christ knew
that His rough path would end at a
tree without one leaf and
with only two branches, bearing fruit
of such bitterness as no human lips
had ever tasted. Obi 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 exile2 Worldly good sometimes
comes from worldly evil. The acci-
dental glance of 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 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: Nov is the
time to write your book" and
his famous Scarlet Letter was
the brilliant consequence. World
ly good sometimes comes from
worldly evil Then be not un-
believing when I tell you that from
the 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