The Monitor-register., 1897-08-13
ridden down the sky followed by all
the cavalry of heaven, mounted on
white horses Of eternal victory?

glory to glory and then sank down in
exhaustion as he saw far above him 9TH
er heights Of divinity unscaled and ex-
claimed that in all things he might
have the pre- eminence.
Again, Christ was wonderful in his
teaching. The people had been used to
| formalities and technicalities. Christ
upset all their notions as to how preach
ing ought to be done. There was this
| popularity about his preaching-the
people knew what he meant His illus
trations were taken from the hen call
ing her chickens together, from salt,
from candles, from fishing tackle, from
hard ere litor collaring debtor. How
few pulpits of this day would have al
lowed him entrance? He would have
! been called undignified and familiar in
his style of preaching. And yet the
people went to hear him. Those old
Jewish rabbits might have preached on
the side of OIivet so years and never
got an audience. The philosophers
sneered at lis ministrations and said,
''This will never do The lawyers
caricatured, but the common people
heard him gladly. Suppose you that
there were any sleepy people i'll his
audiences? Suppose you that any wom-
an who ever mixed bread was ignorant
| of what he meant when he compared
the kingdom of heaven with leaven or
yeast? Suppose you that the sunburned
fishermen, with the fish scales upon
their hands, were listless when he
spoke of the kingdom of heaven as
net? We spend three years in college
studying ancient mythology, and three
wears in the theological seminary learn
ing how to make a sermon, and then
we go out to save the world, and if we
cannot do it according to Claude's
"Sermonizing, or Blair's Rhetoric,
or Kames' Criticism, we will let
the world go to perdition. If we save
nothing else, we will save Claude and
| Blair We see wreck in sight. We
must so out and save the crew and
passengers. We wait until we get on
our fine cap and coat and find our shin
ing oars, and then we push out methodi-
cally and scientifically, while some
plain shoresman, in rough fishing smack
/ and with broken oar lock goes ont and
gets the crew and passengers and brings
them ashore in safety. We throw down
our delicate oars and say: what a
ridiculous thing to save men in that
way! You ought to have done it scien-
tifically and beautifully" ''Ah, says
the shoresman, "if those sufferers had
waited until you got out your fine boat
they would have gone to the bottom. "
The work of religious teacher is to
save men. and though every law of
grammar should be snapped i'll the I'M
dertaking. and there be nothing but
awkwardness and laundering in the
mode, all hail to the man who saves "a
soul
Christ, i'll his preaching, was plain,
earnest and wonderfully sympathetic.
We cannot dragon men into heaven.
We cannot drive them in with the butt
end of a catechism. We waste our time
in trying to catch flies with acids in
stead of the sweet honeycomb of the
gospel We t.y to make crab apples do
the work of pomegranates
The Sorrows of Jesus.
Again, .'tSuS WAS WOuu6I1ul Ill HIS
sorrows The sun smote him, and the
cold chilled him, the rain pelted him,
thirst parched him and hunger exhaust
ed him. Shall | compare his sorrow to
the sea: No, for that is sometimes
hushed into a calm. Shall l compare
j it with the night? No, for that some
times CLEANS with Orion or kindles
: wit \ If thorn Shnn III ha
thrust through your temple you would
faint But here is whole crown made
from the rhamnus or spina Christi
small, sharp, singing thorns. The mob
make a cross. They put down the long
beam, and On it they fasten a shorter
beam Got him at last. Those hands,
that have been doing kindnesses and
wiptng away tears-hear the hammer
driving the spikes through them Those
feet, that have been going about ON
ministrations of mercy - battered
against the cross. Then they lift it up.
Look, look, look! Who will help him
now?. Come, men of Jerusalem-ye
whose dead he brought to life, We whose
sick he healed-who will help him?
Who will seize the weapons of the SOL
, dlers? None to help. Having carried
such cross for US, shall we refuse to
take our cross for him?
Shall Jesus bear the cross alone
And all the world go free?
NO; there's cross for every one,
And there's cross for me-
You know the process of migrating.
You bore hole into a tree and put in
the branch of another tree. This tree
of the cross was hard and rough, but
into the holes where the nails went
there have been grated branches of the
tree of life that now bear fruit for all
nations. The original tree was bitter,
but the branches migrated were sweet,
and now all the nations pluck the fruit
| and live forever.
Again, Christ was wonderful in his
victories.
First, over the forces of nature. The
sea is crystal sepulcher. 1t swallowed
the Central America, the President and
the Spanish Armada as easily as any
fly that ever fioated Oh it. The inland
lakes are fully as terrible in their
wrath. Galilee, when aroused in a
storm, is overwhelming, and yet that
sea crouched in his presence and licked
his feet He knew all the waves and
winds. When he beckoned, they came.
When he frowned, they fled. The heel
of his foot made no indentation on the
soliditied water. Medical science has
wrought great changes in rheumatic
| limbs and diseased blood, but when
muscles are entirely withered no human
/ rn1s
limb is once dead it is dead But here
is paraly tic-his hand lifeless. Christ
| says to him, "Stretch forth thy hand, -"
and he stretches it forth.
| In the eye infirmary how many dis
eases of that delicate organ have been
| cured? But Jesus says to one born
| blind, BE open, and the light of heav-
en- rushes through gates that have never
before been opened. The frost or an ak
may kill a tree, but Jesus smites one
| dead with word
Chemistry can do many wonderful
| things, but what chemist, at wedding,
when the refreshment gave out, could
| change a pail of water into a cask of
wine?
| What human voice could command a
| school of fish? Yet here is a voice that
marshals the scaly tribes, until in the
place where they had let down the net
and pulled it up with no fish in it they
| let it down again, and the disciples lay
hold and begin to pull. when, by reason
| of the multitude of fish, the net brake.
Nature is his servant. The flowers
| he twisted them into his sermons; the
winds-they were his lullaby when he
| slept in the boat; the rain-it hung
L fll. Il