Connecticut western news., 1898-06-02

| O my Lord Jesus, none to helpl The wave of anguish came up to the arch of his feet came up to his knee floated | to his waist, rose to his chin, swept to | his temples, yet none to help Ten thou sand times 10, 900 angels i'll the sky, ready at command to plunge into the bloody affray and strike back the hosts of darkness, yet none to help, none to helpl
 Oh, tlis dove of the text, ill its last moment, clutched not with angry talons | It plunged not a savage beak. It was | dove-helpless defenseless None to | helpl None to help!
 As after a severe storm ill tho morn- ing you go out and find birds dead on the snow, so this dead bird of the text makes me think of that awful storm that swept the earth on crucihxion day, | when the wrath of God and the malice of man and the fury of devils wrestled beneath the three crosses AS we sang | just now:
 | We'll might the sun in darkness hide | And shut his glories in.
 l When Christ, tho mighty Maker, died For man. the creature's sin. ! Blood Atonement.
 But come now to speak of this seo- ond bird of the text We must not let that fly away until we have examined it. The priest took the second bird, tied | it to the hyssop branch, and then plung- | ed it in the blood of the first bird. An, that is my soul. plunged for cleasing i'll | the Saviour's blood. There is not enough | water in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans | to wash away our smallest sin. Sin is such an outrage on Gods universe that | nothing but blood can atone for it. You know the life is in the blood, and as | the life had been forfeited nothing could buy it back but blood. What was it that was sprinkled on the doorposts when tho destroying angel went through the land? Blood. What was it that ! went streaming from the altar of an | cient sacrifice? Blood. What was it that the priest carried into the holy of holies, making intercession for the peo- | ples Blood. What was it that Jesus sweat in the garden of Gethsemane? Great drops of blood What does the wine in the sacramental cup signify? Blood. What makes the robes of the | righteous i'll heaven so fair? They arc washed in the blood of the Lamb. What is it that cleanses all our pollution? The blood of Jesus Christ, that cleanseth from all sin.
 | I hear somebody saying, 1T do not like such sanguinary religion as that. " Do you think it is very wise for the pa tient to tell the doctor, II don't like the medicine you have given mel" If he wants to be cured, he had better take the medicine My Lord God has offered us a balm, and it is very foolish for us | to say, II don't like that balm" We had better take it and be saved But | you do not oppose the shedding of blood | in other directions and for other ends. If a hundred thousand men go out to battle for their country and have to lay down their lives for free institutions is there anything ignoble about that? No; you say, glorious sacrifice rather. And is there anything ignoble in the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ by the shedding of his blood delivered not only one land but all lands and all ages from bondage, introducing men by millions and millions into the liberty of the sons of God? Is there anything ignoble about | that?
 | As this second bird of the text was | plunged in the blood of the first bird so we must be washed in the blood of Christ or go polluted forever.
 l Let the water and the blood, From thy side healing flood. Be of sin the double cure,
 | Save from earth and make me pure | Sin Is Slavery.
 | l notice now that as soon as this second bird was dipped in the blood of the first bird the priest unloosened it and 1t was free-free of wing and free of foot. It could whet its beak on any tree branch it chose It could peck the grapes of any vineyard it chose. It was free-a type of our souls after we have washed in the blood of the Lamb We can go where we will We can do what we will You say, Had you not better | qualify that?" No, for I remember that in conversion the will is changed and | the man will not will that which is wrong. There is no straitjacket in our | religion. A state of sin is state of slav cry. A state of pardon is a state of emancipation. The hammer of Gods grace knocks the hopples from the feet, knocks the handcuffs from the wrist, opens the door into Q landscape all ashimmer with fountains and abloom with gardens It is freedom.
 If a man has become Christian, he is no more afraid of Sinai The thun- ders of Sinai do not frighten him. You have, on some August day. seen two
 thunder showers meet. One cloud from
 this mountain and another cloud from
 that mountain, coming nearer and near
 CT together and responding to each oth-
 CT, crash to crash, thunder to thunder,
 boom, boom And then the clouds break
 and the torrents pour, and they are emp
 tied perhaps into the very same stream
 that comes down sored at your feet that
 it seems as If all the carnage of the
 storm battle has been emptied into it.
 So in this Bible I see two storms gath
 CT, one above Sinai, the other above Cal
 vary, and they respond one to the other | flash to flash, thunder to thunder,
 boom, boom! Sinai thunders, "The soul
 that sinneth, it shall die;" Calvary re-
 spends, Save them from going down to the pit, for have found ransom. ''
 Sinai says, "Woe, woer' Calvary an
 swers, Mercy, mercyW And then the
 clouds burst and empty their treasures
 into one torrent, and it comes flowing
 to our feet, red with the carnage of our
 Lord, in which if thy soul be plunged,
 like the bird in the text, it shall go
 forth ,free-free! Oh, wish all people
 to understand this, that when man \ L. T |
 a slave, but that he becomes free man
 that he has larger liberty after he be-
 comes a child of God than before he be-
 came atchild of God General Fisk said
 that hesonce stood at a,slave block where
 an old Christian minister was being sold.
 The auctioneer said of him: "What bid
 do I hear for this man? He is a very
 good kindiof a man he is a minister. "