The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1896-05-02

cavalry officor who rowoled bis stooo
90 that He might come nearer mp and
see the tortured visage of tho suffer
ing exile, Christ saw It. Whom the
spear was thrust 1t 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-
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 ~
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 tho OBJ
scuration of the heavens, the unbal-
ancing of the rocks, the countenances
quivering with rage and the cachin-
nation diabolic. Oil it was the hos
tile as well as tho barren island Of the
world.
I go further, and tell you that this
exile was far from home. It Ia 81, 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 II, as some think, that
great center In the distance is heaven,
Christ came far from home when
He came here. Have you over
thought Of the homesickness of Christ?
Some of you know what home
sickness is when you have been only q
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 II all your life
you did nothing but count You know
what 1t 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.
I 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 Interchangeable companionship Home
sick to get out of the night and the
storm and the worlds execration.
Inconsistencies will make week seem
as long as a 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.
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 YEARLY stretching out His arms
as one will after being in contracted
or uncomfortable posture, AMI 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 Christs lifetime.
Shadow of cross on the Bethlehem
swaddling clothes. Shadow of a cross
on the road over which the three fugi-
tiyes fled into Egypt Shadow of a
cross on Lake Galilee as Christ walked
Its mosaic floor Of opal and emerald
and crystal. Shadow Of cross on the
brook Kedron, and on the temple, and
on the side of Olivet. Shadow of
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 will end in
warm hospitality; but Christ knew
that His rough path would end at
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
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
L. 4.