The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1899-08-04

away our sorrow, such a hand to snatch
us out of the fire. such foot TO trample
our enemies, such a heart to embrace
all our necessities? | struggle for some
metaphor with which to express Him
He is not like the bursting forth of
full orchestra; that is too loud. He is
not like Tie sea when lashed to rage by
the tempest; that is too boisterous.
He is not like the mountain, its brow
wreathed with the lightnings; that is
too solitary. Give us softer type,
gentler comparison. We have seemed
10 see Him with our eyes and to hear
Him with our ears and to touch Him
with our hands. Oh, that to-day He
might appear to some other one OF our
five senses! Aye, the nostril shall dis
cover His presence. He comes upon us
like spice gales from Heaven. Yea, His
garments smell of lasting and all per-
vasive myrrh.
Would that you all knew his sweet
ness! How soon you would turn from
all other attractions! If the philoso-
pher leaped out of his bath in frenzy
of Joy and clapped his hands and rushed
through the streets because he he'd
found the solution of mathematical
problem, how viii you feel leaping
from the fountain of Saviour's mercy
and pardon, washed clean and made
white as snow, when the question has
been solved: "How can my souI be
saved?" Naked, frostbitten, storm
lashed soul, let Jesus this hour throw
around thee the garments that smell
of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of
the ivory palaces"
Your second curiosity is to know why
the robes of Jesus are odorous with
aloes There is some difference of opin
ion about where these aloes grow, what
is the color of the flower, what is the
particular appearance of the herb. Suf-
fee it for you and me to know that
aloes mean bitterness the world over,
and when Christ comes with garments
bearing that particular odor they sug
gest to me the bitterness of a Sa-
viour's sufferings. Were there ever
such nights as Jesus lived through
nights on the mountains, nights on the
sea, nights in the desert? Who ever
had such a hard reception as Jesus
had? A hOstelry the first, an unjust
trial in oyer and terminer another, a
foul-mouthed, yelling mob the last.
Was there a space on His back as wide
as your two fingers where he was not
whipped? Was there a space on His
brow an inch square where he was not
cut of the briers? When the spike
struck at the instep, did it not go clean
through to the hollow of the foot? Oh,
long, deep, bitter pilgrimage! Aloes,
aloes!
John leaned his head on Christ, but
who did Christ lean on? Five thousand
men fed by the Saviour. Who fed
Jesus? The sympathy of a Saviour's
heart going out to the leper and the
adultress; but who soothed Christ? He
had fit place neither to be born nor to
die. A poor babe! A poor lad! A poor
young man! Not so much as a taper to
cheer His dying hours. Even the can
die of the sun snuffed out. Was it not
all aloes? Our sins, sorrows, bereave-
ments, losses and all the agOnies of
earth and hell picked up as in one clus-
ter and squeezed into one cup that
pressed to His lips until the acid, nau-
seating, bitter draft was swallowed
with Il distorted cOuntenance and
shudder from head to foot and a
gurgling strangulation. Aloes! Aloea!
Nothing but aloes! All this for Him.
self? All this to get the fame in the
world of being a martyr? All this in
a spirit of stubborness, because he did
not like Caesar? No, no! All this be-
cause He wanted to pluck ne and you
from hell. Because He wanted TO
raise me and you to Heaven. Eccause
we were lost, and He wanted us found
Because we were blind, and He wanted
us to see. Because we were serfs, and
He wanted, US manumitted. o We
in whose. cup of life the sacchar-
inc has predominated; o ye who
have had bright and sparkling bev-
erages, how do you feel toward
Him who in your stead and to purchase
your disinthrallment took the aloes,
the unsavory aloes, the bitter aloes?
Your third curiosity is to know why
these garments of Christ are odorous
with cassia. This was a plant which
grew in India and the adjoining islands.
You do not care to hear what kind of
flower it had or what kind of a stalk. 1t
is enough for me to tell you that it was
used incidentally. In that land and in
that age, where they knew but little
about pharmacy, cassia was used to ar
rest many forms of disease. So, when in
my text we find Christ coming with gar
ments that smell of cassia, it suggests
to me the healing and curative power Of
the Son of God. 'Oh," you say, now
you have a superfuous idea! We are
not sick. Why do we want cassia? We
are athletic. Our respiration is perfect.
Our limbs are 1.-THE, and on bright cc0l
days we feel we could bound like a roe"
l beg to differ, my brother, from you.
None of you can be better in physical
health than am, and yet must say we
are all sick. have taken the diagnosis
of your case and have examined all the
best authorities on the subject, and
have to tell you that you are full of
wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores, which have not been bound up
or Modified with ointment" The
of sin is on US, the palsy, the
dropsy, the leprosy. The man that is
expiring tonight il the next street
the allopathic and homeopathic doctors
have given him UP and his friends now
standing around TO take his last words
lis no more certainly dying as 10 his
body than you and are dying unless
we have n ken he Medicine from Gods
apOthecary. All the leaves OF this Bible
are only so many prescriptions from
the Divine Physician, written, not in
Latin. like the prescriptions of earthly
but written in plain Emo