The Monitor-register., 1897-04-23

= nhA NAAio INV AAoAiO Io1 bAo
Glorious Consolation 1t Affords.
WASHINGTON, April 1S.-This sermon
of DR.. Talmage will set its readers to
thinking on new lines, and will make
this season of Easter more inspiring
than even. The text is, John Xxx, 10,
"She, supposing him to be the garden
err"
Here are Mary Magdalene and Christ,
Just after his resurrection. For 1000
years a grim and CHASTITY tyrant had
been killing people and dragging them
into his cold palace. He had a passion
for human skulls. For 40 centuries he
had been unhindered in his work. He
had taken down kings and queens and
conquerors and those without fame. In
that cold palace there were shelves OF
skulls and pillars of skulls and affairs OF
skulls and even the chalices at the table
were made of bleached skulls. To the
skeleton of Abel he had added the skele-
ton of all the ages, and no one had dis
puted his right until one Good Friday,
about 1867 years ago, as near as / can
calculate it, a mighty stranger came to
the door Of that awful palace, rolled
back the door, and went in, and seizing
the tyrant threw him to the pavement
and put upon the ~tyrant's neck the heel
of triumph.
The Easter Morning.
Then the mighty stranger, exploring
all the ghastly furniture of the place
and walking through the labyrinths and
opening the dark cellars of mystery and
tarrying under a roof the ribs of which
were made of human housekeeping
for two nights and a day, the nights
very dark and the day very dismal, he
seized the two chief pillars of that awful
palace and rocked them until it began to
fall, and then, laying hold of the pom
derous front gate, hoisted it from its
hinges and marched forth, crying, Il
am the resurrection" That event we
celebrate this Easter morn, Handelian
and Beethoven miracles of sound added
to this floral decoration which has set
the place abloom.
There are three OR four things which
the world and the church have not no.
ticed in regard to the resurrection Of
Christ. First, our Lord in gardeners at
tire. Mary Magdalene, grief struck,
stands by the riied sarcophagus of
Christ and turns around, hoping she can
find the track of the sa%crilegious resur-
rectionist who has despoiled the grave,
and she finds some n in working ap-
parel come forth as if to water the flow
ers or uproot the weeds from the garden
or set to reclimbing the fallen vine
some II in working apparel, his gar
ments perhaps having the sign of the
dust and the dirt of the occupation.
Mary Magdalene, on her face the rain
of a fresh shower of weeping, turns to
this workman and charges him with the
dissertation of the tomb, when, lol the
stranger responds, 1inging his whole
soul into one word which trembles with
all the sweetest rhythm of earth and
heaven, saying, ''Maryl'' In that Pc
cullarity of accentuation all the incog-
nlto fell off, and she found that instead
of talking with an humble gardener of
Asia Minor, she was talking with him
who owns all the hanging gardens of
heaven. Consultations the clusters of
f~orgetmenots, the sunflower the chief of
all, the morning sky and midnight au-
rora, faring terraces of beauty, blazing
like a summer wall with coronation
roses and giants of battle. Blessed and
glorious mistake of Mary Magdalene!
''She, supposing him to be the garden
en-" What does that mean? 1t means
chat xro have ~ oro,1-lo- CI-,c+ g.,
eryday work in everyday apparel. Not
on Sabbath morning in our most seemly
apparel are we more attractive to Christ
than we are in our everyday work
dress, managing our merchandise, smit-
ing our anvil, blowing our field, tend
ing the flying shuttles, mending the
garments for our household, providing
food for Il families or toiling with
weary pen or weary pencil Or weary
chisel. A working day Christ in work
ing day apparel for us in our everyday
toll. Put it into the highest strain Of
this Easter anthem, Surprising him to
be the gardener"
In Working Garb.
If Christ had appeared at daybreak
with a crown upon his head, that would
have seemed to suggest especial sympa-
thy for monarchs. If Christ had appear
ed in chain of gold and with robe dia-
monded, that would have seemed to be
especial sympathy for the ~affluent. If
Christ had appeared with soldiers sash
and sword dangling at his side, that
would have seemed to imply especial
sympathy for warriors. But when | find
Christ in gardeners habit, with perhaps
the flakes of the earth and of the up-
turned soil upon his garments, then 1
spell it out that he has hearty and pa
thetio understanding with everyday
work and everyday anxiety and every
day fatigue.
Roll it down in comfort all through
these aisles. A working day Christ in
working day apparel. Tell it in the
darkest corridor of the mountain to the
poor miner. Tell it to the factory maid
in most unventilated establishment at
Lowell or Lancaster. Tell it to the clear
er of toughest new ground i'll western
wilderness. Tell it to the sewing wom-
an, a stitch i'll the side for every stitch
in the garment, some Of their cruel en-
ployers having no right to think that
they will get through the door of heaven
any more than they could through the
eye of a broken needle which has just
dropped on the bare floor from the prick
cd and bleeding fingers of the consump-
tive sewing girl. Away with your talk
about hypostatic union and soteriology
of the council of Trent and the meta
physics of religion whicl- would freeze
practical Christianity out of the world,
but pass along this gardeners coat to all
nations that they may touch the hem of
it and feel the thrill of the Christly
brotherhood. Not supposing the man to
be Caesar, not surprising him to be Soc
rates, but surprising him to be the
gardener"
Oh, that is what helped Joseph Wedg-
wood, toiline arid the heat and the
dust of the potlclits, until he could
make for Queen Charlotte the first royal
table service of English manufacture.
That IA what helped James Watt,
scoffed at and caricatured, until he could
put on wheels the thunderbolt of power
which roars by day and by night in ev-
cry furnace of the locomotive engines of
America. That is what helped Hugh
Miller, toiling amid the quarries of
Cromarty, until every rock became to
him a volume of the worlds biography,
and he found the footsteps of the Gre
ator in the old red sandstone. Oh, the
world wants a Christ for the office, a
Christ for the kitchen, a Christ for the
shop, a Christ for the banking house, a
Christ for the garden, while spading
and planting and ~irrigatiEg the terri
toryi oh. Of course We Mant TO see