Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1897-03-31

Subject: "Vicarious Sacrifice
TEXT: without shedding of blood Is no
remission. Hebrews ix., %.
John G. Whittier, the last of the great
school OF American poets that made the
last quarter of a century brilliant. asked me
In the White Mountains one morning after
prayers, in which had given out Cowper's
famous hymn about the 'fountain filled
with blood, DO you really believe there Is
literal application Of the blood of Christ to
the soul?'' My negative reply then is my
! negative reply now. The Bible statement
agrees with all physicians and all physiol-
ogtsts and all scientists in saying that the
blood is the life, and in the Christian
religion II means simply that Christ g
life was given for life. Hence all this talk
OF men who say the Bible story OF blood Is
disgusting, and thar they don't want what
they call slaughter house religion" only
shows their incapacty or unwillingness to
look through the figure of speech toward the
thing signiiled. The blood that on the dark
est Friday the world ever saw oozed or
trickled or poured from the brow. and the
side. AMI the hands, and the feet of the
tllustrious sufferer. back of Jerusalem, In a
few hours coagulated and dried up and for
ever disappeared, and II man had depended
on the application of the literal blood OF
Christ there would not have bsen soul
saved for the last eighteen centuries.
In order to understand this red word of
my text We only have to exercise AS much
common sense in religion We do in every
thing else. Pang for pang, hunger for
hunger. fatigue for fatigue. tear for tear,
blood for blood, life for life, We see every
day illustrated. The act of substitution Is
no novelty, although l hear men talk as
though the idea of Christ's suffering SUBJ
stituted for our suffering were something
abnormal, something distressingly odd,
fri
episode In the worlds nistory-when could
take you out into this city and before sun
down point you to five hundred cases of sub
stitution and voluntary suffering of one in
behalf of another
At o'clock tomorrow afternoon go
among the places of business or toll. 1t will
be no difficult thing for you to find men who
by their looks show you that they are over.
worked. They are prematurely old. They
are Fastening rapidly toward their decease.
They have gone through crises in business
that shattered their nervous system and
pulled on the brain. They have "A shortness
OF breath and a pain in the back of the head
and at night an insomnia that alarms them.
Why are they drudging at business early and
late2 For fun? No. II would be difficult
to extract any amusement out of that ex-
haustion. Because they are avaricious2 In
many cases no. Because their own personal
expenses are lavish? No. few hundred
dollars would meet all their wants. The
simple fact is the man is enduring all that
fatigue and evaporation and wear and tear
to keep his home prosperous. There is an
invisible line reaching from that store from
that bank, from that shop, from that scat.
folding, TO quiet scene a few blocks away,
few miles away. And there is the secret
| of that business endurance. He Is simply
the champion of a homestead for which he
wins bread and wardrobe and education and
prosperity, and in such battle 10, 900 men
fAli. Oh ten hIlSIpnSS whom | hnry nine
die OF overwOrk frr others. Some sudden
disease finds them with no power of resist
ance, and they are gone. Life for life. Blood
for blood Substitution!
At o'clock tomorrow morning. tho hour
when Siumher is most uninterrupted and
most profound, walk amid the dwelling
housesof the city. Here and there you will
find dim light because it is the household
custom TO keep a subdued light burning but
most OF the houses from base to top are a.
dark as though uninhabted. A merciful
God has sent forth the archalgei of sleep,
and he puts his wings over the city. But
yonder is a clear light burnin;,, and outside
on the window easement is a glass or pitcher
containing food for a sick child. The food
Is set i'll the fresh air. This is the sixth
night that mother has sat up with that suf.
ferer. She has to the last point obeyed the
physicians prescription, not giving Il drop
too much or too little or moment too soon
or too late. She is very anxious, for she has
buried three children with the same disease.
ant she prays AMI weeps, eaci prayer and
sob ending with kiss OF tho pale cheek.
By dint of kindness she gets the little one
through the ordeal. After ii is all over the
mother Is taken down. Brain or nervous
fever sets in, aud one day she leaves the con-
valescent child with a mothers blessing and
goes up to join the three in the kingdom of
heaven. Life for life, Substitution! The
fact Is that there are an uncounted number
OF mothers who. after they have navigated II
large family of children through all the dis
eases OF infancy and got them fairly start ed up
the towering slope of ooyhood and girlhood
have only strength enough left to die. They
fade away. Some call it consumption.
Some call it nervous prostration. Some call
1t Intermittent or malarial indispo5ition. But
call it martyrdom of the domestic circle.
Life for life. Blood for blood. Substitu.
tioni
Or perhaps the mother fingers long enough
to see a son get on the wrong road. and his
former kindness becomes rough reply
when she expresses anxiety about him.
But she goes right on, looking carefully af-
ter his apparel, remembering his every birth
day with some memento, and, when he is
brought home worn out with dissipation,
nurses him till he gets we'll and starts hSn
again and hopes and expects and pray5 and
counsels and suffers until her strength gives
out and she fails. She is going, and atten-
dants, bending over her pillow, ask her ii
SuC mas any llts-tRc ~ lcdNc, duu sue udhe-
great effort to say something. but out OF
three or four minutes Of indistinct utterance
they can catch but three words, "My poor
boy" The simple fact Is she died for him.
Life for life. Substitution
About thirty-six yealS ago there went forth
from our northern and southern homes hun
dreis Of thousands OF men to do battle for
their country. ALI the poetry of war soon
vanished and left them nothing but the ter
rible prose. They waded knee deep in mud.
They slept in snow-banks. They marched
till their cut feet tracked the earth. They
wera swindlei out of their honest rations
AMI live on meat not fit for dog. They
b I'd JAWS all fractured and eyes extinguished
AMI limbs shot away. Thousands of them
cried for water as they lay dying on the field
the night after the battle and got it not.
They were home5ick and received no mes
sage from their loved ones. They died in
barns, in bushes in bitches, the buzZards OF
! the summer heat the only attendants on
their obsequies No one but the infinite God
who knows everything, knows the ten-thou-
sandth part of the length and breadth and
depth and height of ;he anguish Of the
northern and southern battlehelds. Why
did these fathers leave their children and 20
to the front, and why did these young men,
pos poning the marriage day, start out into
| the probabilities OF never coming back? For
| the country they died. Life tor life. Blood
| for blood. Substitution,
but we Heau NOT 90 SO lar Wnat is thal
/ monument in Greenwood? II il to the doc
| tors who fell in the southern epidemics
Why go? We're there not enough sick to be
| attended in these northern latitudes? Oh
i yes, But the doctor puts few medica
1 books in his valise, and some v;ai5 of medi
\ cine, and leaves his patients hero in th'
hands OF other physicians and takes the raj
| train, Before he gets to the infected region;
| he passes crowded rail trains, regular anc
| extra. takingthe flying and affrighted popu
lations. He arrives in city over which
great horror is brooding. He goes from
couch to couch, feeling of the pulse anC
studying symptoms and prescribing day af
Ter day. night after night until a fellow
| physician says: doctor, you had bette
go home and rest You look mis-
>rab!e." But he cannot rest while D
many are suffering. On and on until
some morning finds him in a deirium in
which he talks of home, and then rises and
says he must. go and look after those patti
snts. He is told to lie down, but he f1-hts
l.