Semi-weekly independent., 1896-04-25
roform, no merciful anaesthetic to dull or

roform, no merciful anaesthetic TO dull or
etupefy: but, wide awake, he saw the
observation of the heavens, the unbalanc-
Ing of the rocks, the countenances quiy-
ering with rage and the exclamation dia-
bolc oh, it was the hostile as we'll as
the barren island of a world,
l go farther and tell you that this exile
was far from home. 1t is 95,0OO.OOO 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
calculation 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 home
sickness of Christ? Some OF you know
what hOmesickness is when you have been
only n few weeks absent from the domes-
tic circle. Christ was 33 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 il is
to be homesick even amid pleasant sur
roundingS. but Christ slept in huts. and
he was athrst. and he was a-hungered
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
homesick that they fall into melancholy
and sometimes they die under the home
sickness. But. oh, the inconsistencies of
Christ. Poverty homesick for celestial
riches. Persecution homcsick for hosan-
ma. WEAKNESS homesick for rest. Home
SICK FOR angelic and archangelic compan-
ionship. Homesick to get ont of the night
and the storm and the worlds exccration.
inconsistencies will make Il week seem as
long as n 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 mag
nitude and ponderosity of a Saviour's
homesickness.
| take n step farther 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 in the
Nazarene carpenter shop. Around him
are the saws. the hammers, the axes. the
drills Of carpentry. The picture repre-
sents Christ as rising from the carpenters
working bench and wearily stretching out
his arms as one will after being in con-
tracted or uncomfortable posture, and the
light of that picture is so arranged that
the arms Of Christ, wearily 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 n cross
on the Bethlehem swaddling clothes:
shadow of n cross on the road over which
the three fugitives fled into Egypt; shad-
ow OF cross on Lake Galilee as Christ
walked its mosaic floor Of opal and en-
erald and crystal; shadow Of a cross on
the road to Emmaus; shadow of n cross on
the brook Kedron. and on the temple. and
on the side of Olivet; shadow of n cross
on sunrise and sunset. Constantine.
marching with his army, saw just once
a cross in the sky, but Christ saw the
cross all the time
The Doom of Desperado.
On n rough jouriey we cheer ourselves
with the fact that it will end in warm hos
pitality, but Christ knew that his rough
path would end at a defoliaged tree. with
out one leaf and with only two branches.
bearing fruit of such bitterness as no hu
man lips had ever tasted. Oh. what an
exile. starting in an infancy without any
in O., M.
without any water, day without any sun
light. The doom of a desperate for more
than angelic excellence For what that
expatriation and that exile? Worldly
good sometimes comes from worldly evil.
The accidental glance of a sharp blade
from razor grinders wheel put out the
eye OF Gambetta and excited sympathies
which gained him an education and start
ed him on career that made his name
more majestic among Frenchmen than
any other name in the last twenty years.
turned out Of the Office of col
lector 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 unbelieving
when l tel. you that from the greatest
crime of all eternity and of the whole
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 de-
portation toward heaven and to heaven of
all those who will accept the proffer.
a ship large enough to take all
the passengers that will come aboard it.
a Land of Voluntary Exile.
For this royal exile bespeak the love
and service of all the exiles here present. |
and, in one sense or the other. that in |
cludes all of us. The gates of this conti- |
nent have been SO widely opened that
there are here many voluntary exiles |!
from other lands. Some of you are Scotch
men. l see it in your high cheek bones |
and in the color that illumines your face
when / mention the land of your nativity |
Bonny Scotland. Dear old kirk. Some |
Of your ancestors sleeping in Greyfriars
by the deep lochs filled |
Dut of the pitchers Of heaven, or under |
the heather. sometimes so deep of color it |
makes one think of the blood Of the Cove |