The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-08-09

Inc ohIY PMS 70 take with HOODS SarSaparilla.
when he might have taken the sp.endors
of the sunset for his equipage, and moved
with horses and chariots of fire? Why beg
a drink from the waysde when out Of the
crystal chalices of eternity he poured the
Eupnrates, the Mississippi, and the ANA
zOn, ana dipping his hand in the fountains
of heaven, and shaking that hand over
the world, from the tips of his fingers
dripping the great lakes and the oceans?
Why Jet the Roman regiment put him to
death, when he might have ridden down
the sky followed by all the cavalry of heav-
en-, mounted on white horses of eternal vic
tory?
You cannot understand. Who can?
You try to confound me. 1 am confounded
before you speak Paul said it was I'M
scarchable He went climbing up from ar
Eument to argument and from antithe-
sis to antithesis. and from glory to glory.
and then sank down in exhaustion as he
saw far above him other nights Of di-
vinity unscaled, and exclaimed chat in
all things he might have the pre-emi-
hence"
Again: Christ was wonderful in his
teaching. The people had been used to
formalities and technicalities; Christ up
set all their notions as to how preaching
ought TO be done. There was this pecu-
liarity about his preaching: the people
a.
were taken from the hen calling her chick
ems together; from salt, from candles, from
hshing-tackle, from a. hard creditor col
laring debtor How few pulpts of this
day would have allowed 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 rabbs might have preached on the
side of Olivet fifty years and never got
an audience. The philosophers sneered at
his ministrations and said, This will new
or do' The lawyers caricatured but the
common people heard him gladly Sup
pose you that there were any sleepy peO-
pie in his audiences? Suppose you that
any woman who ever mixed bread was
ignorant OF what he meant when he COM
pared the kingdom of heaven with lcaVen
or yeast? Suppose you that the sunburned
fishermen, with the fsh-scales upon their
hands, We're hstless when he spoke of the
kingdom of heaven as a net? We spend
three years in college studying ancient my.
thology, and three years In the theological
seminary learning how to make a sermon,
and then we so out to save the world; and
If we cannot do it according to Claude
"SermonizinC," or Blair's Rhetoric or
Kame's Criticism we win let the world
80 TO perdition. If we save nothing else,
we viii save Claude and Blair. We see a
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
shining oars, and then we push out meth
odically and scientifically, while some
plain shoresman, in rough fishing-smack
and with broken oar-lock, goes out and
gets the crew and passengers, and brings
them ashore in safety. We
throw down our delicate oars
and say, What ridiculous
thing to save men in that way! You ought
to have done il scientifically and beauti-
4 CHI
those sufferers had waited until you got
out your fine boat, they would have gone
to the bottom"
The work of a religious teacher Is to
save men; and though every law Of gram
mar should be snapped in the undertake
ing and there be nothing but awkward
ness and laundering in the mode all hail
to the man who saves a soul.
Christ, In his preaching, was plain. earn
est, and wonderfully sympathetic We
cannot dragon men into heaven We
cannot drive them I'm with the butt-end of
a catechism. We waste our time in try
ing to catch flies with acids instead of the
sweet honeycomb of the gospel. We try
to make crab-apples do the work of pome-
granates
Again: Jesus was wonderful in his sor-
rows. The sun smote him. and the cold
chilled him, the rain pelted him. thirst
parched him, and hunger exhausted him.
1ildil L compare mss SOlrOW to the sea-
No; for that is sometimes hushed into a
calm. Shall / compare it with the night?
No; for that sometimes CLEANS with Orion.
or kindes with Aurora If one thorn
should be thrust through your temple YOU
would faint But here IS a whole crown
made from the Rhamnus or Spina Christi
small, sharp. singing thorns The mob
makes a cross. They put down the long
beam, and on it they fasten shorter
beam Got him at last. Those hands that
have been doing k.ndnesses and wiping
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 1t up. Look! look look! Who
VIII help him now? Come, men of Jerusa-
lem--ye whose dead he brought to life:
We whose sick he healed; who viii help
him? Who will seize the weapons of the
soldiers? None to helpl Having carried
such a 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 n cross for everyone.
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
been grated branches Of the Tree of Life
that now bear fruit for all nations. The
original tree was bitter, but the branches
ingrafted were sweet, and now AN the
nations pluck the fruit and live for ever
Again: Christ was wonderful In his vic
tories
First over the forces OF nature The
sea is a crystal sopulchre. II swallowed
the Central America, the President and
the Spanish Armada as easily as any ny
that ever hoated on &C. The Inland lakes
are fully as terrible In their wrath. Cali
lee when aroused la "a storm is over
widening. ana yet that sea crouchcd in
his presence and licked his feet lie
knew all tho waves and winds When he
! heekoned be- came. when he frowned
| they fed The heel of his foot made no
| indentatlon on the soldihod water. Medi-
! cal science has wrought great changes in
rheumatic limbs and diseased blood. but
| when che muscles are entirely Withercd
no human power can restore them. and
when "a limb is once dopd 10 BE- dead. But
/ here Is q paraytic-hls hand ufolcss.
! Christ says TO him, stretch forth they
! hand" and Ec stretched IL forth.
| in the eye innrmnry, now many dis
an No. nd #..HI