Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1897-03-25

only IS cents. lnSistOn 2
Chew LASeE's PLUGS. The Great Tobacco Eutidot,
pay this authors pen tor It's cnIvalric and |
Christian defense of poorpaintor' pencil |
John Ruskin for William Turner. Blood |
for blood. Substitution!
What an exaIting principle this which |
leads one to suffer for anotherl Nothing |
so kindles enthusiasm, or awakens elo-
quence, OF chimes poetic canto, or moves
nations. The principle is the dominant |
one in our religion-Christ the martyr,
Christ the celestial hero, Christ the de-
fender, Christ the substitute No new
principle, for It was as old as human ma
ture, but now on a grander, wider, higher,
deeper and more world resounding scale. |
The shepherd boy as u champion for Israel
with sling toppled the giant of Philistine
braggadocio in the dust but here is an
other David, who for all the armies of
churches militant and triumphant, hurls
the Goliath of perdition into defeat, the
crash of his brazen armor like an explo-
sion at Hell Gate. Abraham had at Gods
command agreed to sacrifice his son Isaac
and the same God just in time had pro-
vided ram of the thicket as substitute,
but here is another Isaac bound to the
altar, and no hand arrests the sharp edges
of laceration and death, and the universe
shivers and quakes and recoils and groans
at the horror.
All good men have for centuries been
trying to tell who this substitute was
like, and every comparison, inspired and
tolic and human, falls short, for Christ
was the Great Unlike. Adam a type Of
Christ because he came directly from God,
Noah a type of Christ because he delivered
his own family from the deluge, Melchise-
dec type of Christ because he had no pred
ecessor or successor, Joseph type of
Christ because he was cast out by his
brethren Moses type of Christ because
he was a deliverer from bondage, Samson
a type of Christ because of his strength to
slay the lions and carry off the iron gates
Of impossibility, Solomon type of Christ
in the affluence of his dominion, Jonah a
type of Christ because of the stormy sea in
which he threw himself for the rescue of
others, but put together Adam and Noah
and Mclchisedec and Joseph and Moses and
Joshua and Samson and Solomon and Jo-
nah, and they would not make fragment
of Christ, q quarter of Christ the half
of Christ or the millionth part Of
| Christ.
What Christ Did.
He forsook throne and sat down on his
own footstool. He came from the top of
glory to the bottom of humiliation and
changed circumference seraphic for cir
| lsnI, Ill .Aol L..
angels, now hissed at by brigands. From
afar and high up he came down; past me-
teors swifter than they; by starry thrones,
himself more lustrous; past larger worlds
to smaller worlds; down stairs of frma-
ments, and from cloud to cloud, and
through tree tops and into the camel stall,
to thrust his shoulder under our burdens
and take the lances Of pain through his
vitals, and wrapped himself in all the
agonies which we deserve for our misdo-
ings, and stood on the splitting decks of
foundering vessel amid the drenching surf
of the sea, and passed midnights on the
mountains amid wild beasts of prey, and
stood at the point where all earthly and in
fernal hostilities charged on him at once
with their keen sabers-our substitute!
When did attorney ever endure so much
for pauper Client or physician for the
patient in the laZaretto, or mother for the
child in nembranous Group, as Christ for
us, as Christ for you, as Christ for me?
Shall any man or woman or child in this
audience who has ever suffered for another
find it hard to understand this Christly
suffering for US? Shall those whose SYM
pathies have been wrung in behalf of the
unfortunate have no appreciation of that
one moment which was lifted out Of all the
ages of eternity as most conspicuous when
Christ gathered up all the sins of those to
be redeemed under his one arm and all his
sorrows under his other arm and said: II
will atone for these under my right arm
and will heal all those under my left arm.
Strike me with all thy glittering shafts,
o eternal Justice! Boil over me with all
thy surges, ye oceans of sorrowr' And the
thunderbolts struck him from above, and
the seas of trouble rolled up from beneath,
hurricane after hurricane, and cyclone aft
er cyclone, and then and there in presence
of heaven and earth and hell--yea, all
worlds witnessing-the price, the bitter
price,, the transcendent price, the awful
price, the glorious price, the infinite price,
the eternal price, was paid that sets us free.
That is what Paul means, that is what
1 mean, that is what all those who have
ever had their heart changed mean by
"blood" glory in this religion of blood.
l am thrilled as see the suggestive color
in sacramental cup, whether it be Of bur-
nished silver set on cloth immediately
white, or rough hewn from wood set on
table in log hut meeting house of the will
derness. Now l am thrilled as I see the
affairs of ancient sacrifice crimson with the
blood of the slain lamb, and Leviticus is
to me not SO much the Old Testament as
the New. Now see why the destroying
angel, passing over Egypt in the night,
spared all those houses that had blood
sprinkled ON their doorposts. Now know
what Isaiah means when he speaks of
Zone in red apparel coming with dyed
garments from Bosrah," and whom the
Apocalypse means when it describes a
heavenly chieftain whose "vesture was
dipped in blood" and what Peter, the
apostle, means when he speaks Of the
''precious blood that cleanseth from all
sin, " and what the old, worn out decrepit
missionary Paul means when, in my text,
he cries, without shedding of blood is no
remission" BY that blood you and 1 will
be saved or never saved at all. Glory be
to God that the hill back of Jerusalem was
the battlefield on which Christ achieved
our liberty!
Waterloo.
The most exciting and overpowcring
day of one summer was the day spent on
the battlefield Of Waterloo. Starting out
with the morning train from Brussels, we
arrived in about an hour on that famous