The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-03-25

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Of God. Just how Christ look
ed into this world, Just how he looks
in heaven, we cannot say. A writer in
the time of Christ says, describing the
Saviour's personal appearance, that ne
had blue eyes and light complexion,
and a very graceful structure, but /
suppose it was all guess-work. The
painters of the different ages have tried
to imagine the features of Christ and
put them upon canvass, but We will
have to wait until we see him and with
our own ears we can hear him. And
yet there is a way of seeing and hear
ing him now. I have to tell you that
unless you see and hear Christ on
earth you will never see and heal him
in heaven. Look! There he is, Be
hold the Lamb of God! Can you not
see him? Then pray to God to take
the scales off your eyes,. Look that
way-try to look that way. His voice
comes down to you this day-comes
down to the blindest, to the deafest
soul, saying, Look unto me, all We
ends of the earth, and be We saved, for
/ am God, and there is none e!sa."
Proclamation of universal amnes-
ty for all rebels. Belshazzer
gathered the Babylonish mobiles
to his table; George 1 entertained the
lords of England at banquet; Napo-
leon III welcomed the car of Russia
and the sultan of Turkey to his feast;
the emperor of Germany was glad to
have our minister, George Bancroft,
sit down with him at his table, but tell
me, we who know most of the worlds
hicforyy Whof ofha or Iyino wa oc11od Tho
abandoned and the forlorn and the
wretched and the out cast to come and
sit beside him?
Oh, wonderful invitation! You can
take it today and stand at the head of
the darkest alley in any city and say:
Come! Clothes for your rags, salve for
your sores, a throne for your eternal
r~eigning." A Christ hat talks like
that and acts like that and pardons
like that-do you wonder that Stephen
stood looking at him? 1 hope to spend
eternity doing the same thing. I must
see him. l must look upon that face
once clOuded with my sin, but now
radiant with my pardon. I want to
touch that hand that knocked off my
shackles. I want to hear hat voice
which pronounced my deliverance.
Behold him, little children, for if you
live to threescore years and ten you
will seenone sofair. Behold him, we aged
ones, for he only can shine through the
dimness of your failing eyesight. Be-
hold him, earth. Behold him, heaven.
What a moment when all the nations
of the saved shall gather around
Christ! All faces that way. All
thrones that way, gazing on Jesus.
His worth if all the nations knew
Sure the whole earth would love him too.
DEATH OF A MARTYR.
I pass on now and look at Stephen
stoned. The world has always wanted
to get rid of good men. Their very life
is an assault upon wickedness. Out
with Stephen through the gates of the
city. Down with him over the preci-
pices. Let every man come up and
drop a stone upon his head. But these
men did not so much kill Stephen as
they killed themselves. Every stone
rebounded upon. them. While these
murderers were transfixed by the scOrn
Of all good men, Stephen lives in the
admiration of all Christendom.
Stephen stoned, but Stephen alive. So
all good men must be pelted. All who
will live godly in Christ Jesus must
suffer persecution. 1t is no eulogy of
a man to say that everybody likes him.
Show me any one who is doing all his
duty to state or church, and I will show
you men who utterly abhor him.
If all men speak we'll of you, it is be-
you are eithera laggard or a dolt.
If a steamer makes rapid progress
through the waves, the water will boil
and foam all around it. Brave soldiers
of Jesus Christ will hear the carbines
click. When I see a man with voice
and money and influence all on the
right side, and some c%aricature him,
and some sheer at him, and some de
nounce him, and men who pretend to
be actuated by right motives conspire
to cripple him, to cast him out, to de-
stroy him, I say, stephen stoned"
When 1 see a man in some great
moral or religious reform battling
against grogshOps, exposing wicked
ness in high places, by active means
trying to purify the church and better
the worlds estate, and l find that some
of the newspapers anathematiZe him,
and men, even good men, oppose him
and denounce him, because, though he
does good, he does no do it in their
way, I say, stephen stoned" The
world, with infinite spite, took after
John Frederick Oberlin and Paul and
Stephen of the text. But you notice,
my friends, that while they assaulted
him they did not succeed really in kill
ing him. You may assault a good man,
but you cannot kill him.
THE WAY TO THE CITY.
On the day of his death Stephen
spoke before a few people in the san
hedrin; now he addresses all Christen-
dom. Paul the apostle stood on Mars
hill addressing a handful of philoso-
pher who knew not so much about
science as a modern schoolgirl. Today