Connecticut western news., 1897-01-07

ering as that between the monday of Christ's celestial departure and the mid night of his earthly arrival? Sure enough, the angels were out that night In the sky, and an especial meteor acted as escort, but all that was from other worlds, and not from this world. The earth made no demonstration of well come. If one of the great princes of this world steps out at depot, cheers re- sound, and the bands play, and the flags wave. But for the arrival of this mis- sionary Prince of the skies not torch flared. not trumpet blew, not plume fluttered. All the music and the pomp were overhead Our world opened for him nothing better than barn door.
 The rajah of Cashmere sent to Queen Victoria bedstead of carved gold and a canopy that cost $750,0 but the world had for the Prince of heaven and earth only litter of straw. The crown jewels in the Tower of London amount to $15, 900, 900, but this member of eter- nal royalty had nowhere to lay his head. To know how poor he was, ask the camel drivers, ask the shepherds, ask Mary, ask the three wise men of the east who afterward came to Bethlehem. To know how poor he was, examine all the rec- ords of real estate ill all that oriental country and see what vineyard or what field he owned Not one. Of what mort gage was he the mortgagee? Of what tenement was he the landlord? Of what lease was he the lessee? Who ever paid him rent? Not owning the boat on which he sailed, or the beast on which he rode, or the pillow on which he slept he had SO little estate that, in order to pay his tax, he had to perform mir acle, putting the amount of the assess ment in a fish's mouth and having it hauled ashore. And after his death the world rushed in to take an inventory of his goods, and the entire aggregate was the garments he had worn, sleeping in them by night and travelling in them by day, bearing on them the dust of the highway and the saturation of the sea. St. Paul in my text hit the mark when he said of the missionary Prince, "For your sakes he became poor.
 suocinct Biography.
 The world could have treated him better if it had chosen. It had all the means for making his earthly condition comfortable. Only a few years before, when Pompey, the general, arrived in Brindisi. he was greeted with arches and costly column which celebrated the 12,000,0 900 people whom he had killed or conquered, and he was allowed to wear his triumphal robe in the sen- ate. The world had applause for impe- rial butchers, but buffeting for the Prince of Peace. Plenty of golden ohal. ices for the favored to drink out of, but our Prince must put his lips to the bucket of the we'll by the roadside after he had begged for drink. Poor? Born in another mans barn and eating at another mans table and cruising the lake ill another mans fishing smack and buried in another mans tomb, Four inspired authors wrote his biogra- phy, and innumerable lives of Christ have been published, but he composed his autobiography ill most compressed way. He said, II have trodden the wine press alone. "
 Poor ill the estimation of nearly all the prosperous classes. They called him Sabbath breaker, wine bibber, traitor, blasphemer and ransacked the dictionary of opprobrium from cover to cover to express their detestation. I can think now of only two well to do men who espoused his cause, Nicodemus and Jo- seph of Arimathea. His friends for the most part were people who. in that oli- xx,Ho thol fo nr ipA Aa tion of the eyeball, sweeps ever and anon as a scourge, had become blind, sick people who were anxious to get well and troubled people in whose family there was some one dead or dying. If he had purse at all, it was empty or we would have heard what the soldiers did with the contents. Poor? The pigeon in the dovecot, the rabbit in its bur row, the silkworm in its cocoon, the bee in its hive is better provided for, better off, better sheltered. Aye, the brute creation has home on earth. which Christ had not. A poet says:
 If on windy days the raven
 Gambol like a dancing skif.
 Not the less he loves his haven
 On the bosom of the cliff.
 If almost with eagle pinion
 Der the Alps the chamois rohm,
 Yet he has some small dominion
 Which doubt he calls his home.
 A H omeless Prince.
 But the Crown Prince of all heavenly dominion has less than the raven, less than the chamois, for he was homeless Aye, in the history of the universe there Is no other instance of such coming down. Who can count the miles from the top of the throne to the bottom of the cross? Cleopatra, giving a banquet to Antony, took pearl worth $100, 900 and dissolved it ill vinegar and swai- lowed it. But when our Prince, accoru- ing to the evangelist, in his last hours took the vinegar, in 1t had been dissolv- ed all the pearls of his heavenly royalty. Down until there was no other harass- ment to suffer, poor until there was no other pauperism to torture. Billions of dollars spent in wars to destroy men, who will furnish the statistics Of the value of that precious blood that was shed to save us? "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.
 Only those who study this text in two places can fully realize it's power-the Holy Land of Asia Minor and the holy land of heaven. I wish that some day you might go to the Holy Land and take drink out of Jacobs we'll, and take a sail on Galilee, and read the sermon on the mount" while standing on Olivet, and see the wilderness where Christ was tempted, and be some afternoon on Cal vary at about 8 o'clock, the hour at which closed the crucihxion, and sit under the sycamores and by the side of brooks and think and dream and pray about the poverty of him who came our souls to save But you may be denied that, and so here, in another continent and in another hemisphere and in scenes as different as possible, we recount as we'll we may how poor was our heaven ly Prince. But in the other holy land above we may all study the riches that be left behind when he started for