The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-06-03

trembled more and more. Forty
"forty-fve"-"ffty''- fifty-fve"-"six-
ty"-"sixty-fve." The old man cried
out seventy" He was afraid they
would outbid him. The men around
were transixed. Nobody dared bid,
and the auctioner struck him down to
himself-done-done.
PURCHASED By CHRIST.
But by reason Of sin we are poorer
than that African. We cannot buy our
own deliverance. The voices OF death
are bidding for us. and they bid us in
and they bid US down. But the Lord
Jesus Christ comes and says Il will
buy that man. l bid fer him my
Bethlehem manger 1 bid for him my
| hunger on the mountain; I bid for him
my aching head; 1 bid for him my
fainting heart; 1 bid for him all my
| God says: 1T is enough! Jesus has
bought him" Bought with a price.
| The purchase complete. 1t is done.
The great transactions done.
1 am my Lords, and he is mine.
He drew me, and I followed on,
Charmed to confess the voice divine
Why, is not a man free when he gets
| rid of his sins? The sins of the tongue
gone; the sins of action gone; the sins
| of the mind gone. All the transgres-
sions of 80, 40, so, 20 years gone-no
more in the soul than the malaria that
foated in the atmosphere 1000 years
| ago; for when my Lord Jesus pardons
| a man he pardons him, and there is no
| half work about 1t.
Here I see a beggar going along the
turnpike road. He is worn out with
disease. He is stiff in the joints. He
l 3
his eyes. He is sick and wasted. He
is in rags. Every time he puts down
his swollen feet he cries "Oh, the
pain!" He sees a fountain by the
roadside under a tree, and he crawls
up to that fountain and asks: II must
wash. Here I may cool my ulcers
Here I may get rested" He stopped
down and scoops up in the palm of
his hands enough water to Stake his
thirst and that is all gone. Then he
stopped down and began to wash his
eyes and the rheum is all gone. Then
he puts in his swollen feet, and the
swelling is gone. Then, willing no
longer to be only half cured, he plum
ges in n his whole body is laved in
the stream, and he gets upon the bank
we'll. Meantime the owner of the nan
sion up yOnder comes down, Xxi
through the ravine with his only son,
and he sees the bundle of rags and
asks, Whose rag are these?" A
voice from the fountain says, Those
are my rags" Then says the master
to his son. go up to the house and
get the best new suit you can find
bring it down." And he brings down
the clothes, n the beggar is clothed
in them and he looks around and says:
Il was filthy, but now I am clean. I
was ragged, but now I am robed. I
was blind, but now I see. Glory be to
the owner of that mansion and GLORY
be to chat son who brought me tina
new suit of clothes, and glory be to
this fountain where I have washed and
wher all who will may wash and be
clean!" Where sin is bounded, grace
doth much more abound. The bird has
been dipped; now let it fly away.
THE WAY INDICATED.
The next thing I notice about this
bird when it was loosened-and this is
the main Ideals hat it fled away
Which a did it go? When you let a
bird loose from your grasp which way
does it fly? Up. What are wings for?
To fly with. Is there anything in the
suggestion of the direction taken by
that bird to indicate which way we
ought to go?
Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,
Thy better portion trace.
Rise from transitory things
To heaven, thy native place.
We should be going ~heavenward.
That is the suggestion. But I know that
we nave a great many drawbacks. You
had them this morning perhaps. You
had them yesterday or the day before,
and, although you want to be going
heavenward, you are constantly dis
couraged. But I suppose when the bird
went out of the priests hands in went
by Neutrality-suspicious. stopping. A
bird does not shoot directly up, bu
this is the motion of a bird. So the
soul scars toward God, rising up in love
and sometimes depressed by trial. It
does not always go in the direction it
| would like to go, but the main course
is right. There is one passage in the
Bible which I quote oftener to myself
than any other, H knoweth our
frame and he remembereth that we
are dust"
There is a legend in Iceland which
says that when Jesus was a boy, play
ing with his comrades one Sabbath
day, he made birds of clay, and as
these birds Of clay were standing upon
the ground an old Sadducee came along
and he Vas disguised at the sport and
dashed Tie birds to pieces. But the
legend says that Jesus waved his hand
Miraculous RnnnE+