The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-07-31

hollow of the footf Oh, long, deep. BIT
ter pilgrimsgeI Aloes, aloes!
John leaned his head on Christ, but
who did Christ lean on? Five thousand
men fed by the Saviour. Who fed
Jesus? Y llpathy of a Saviour's
heart goiae Il to the leper and the
adulteress; l,ut who soothed Christ? He
had a fit place neither to be born nor to
de- A poor babe! A poor lad! A poor
young man! Not so much as taper to
cheer his dying hours. Even the candle
of the sun snuffed out. Was 1t not all
aloes? Our sins, sorrows, bereayements,
losses and all the agonies Of earth and
hell picked up as In one cluster and
squeezed into one cup and that pressed
to his lips until the acrid, nauseating,
bitter draft was swallowed with dis
torted countenance and a shudder from
head to foot and gurgling strangula-
ton. Aloes! Aloes! Nothing but aloes!
All this for himself7 All this to get the
fame In the world of being martyr? All
this in spirit of stubbornness, because
he did not like Caesar2 No, no! All this
because he wanted to pluck me and you
from hell. Because he wanted to raise
me and you to heaven. Because 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 ye in whose cup of
life the saccharine has predominated;
o We who have had bright and spar
king beverages, how do you feel toward
him who In your stead and to purchase
your disinthrallment took the aloes, the
unsayory 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 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. 30, when In
my text we find Christ coming with gar
ments that smell Of cassia, 1t suggests to
me the healing and curative power Of
the Son Of God. "Oh." you say, NOW
you have superfuous ideal We are
not sick. Why do we want cassia? We
are athletic. Our respiration Is perfect.
Our limbs are 1.-THE, and on bright cool
days we feel we could bound like 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 hive examined all the
best authorities on the subject, and l
have to tell you that you are "full of
wounds and bruises and putrefying sores,
which have not been bound up or molli-
fed with ointment" The marasmus of
sin Is on us, the palsy, the dropsy, the
leprosy. The man that is expiring to-
night in the next street.-the allopathic
and homeopathic doctors have given him
up and his friends now standing around
to take his last words-is no more GER
tainly dying as to his body than you and
l are dying unless we have taken the
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 prescrip-
lions Of earthly physicians, but written
in plain English SO that imam, though
a fool, need not err therein" Thank
you tudt lue bouNIouk buAhAeAtS oihSAA "a
cassia!
Suppose a man were sick. and there
was phial on his mantelpiece with
medicine he knew would cure him, and
he refused to take 1t, what would you
say of him? He is suicide. And what
do you say of that man who, sick in sin,
has the healing medicine of Gods grace
offered him and refuses to take 1t? 1t
he dies, he is u suicide. People talk as
though God took a man and led him out
to darkness and death, as though he
brought him up to the cliffs and then
pushed him off. Oh, mol When man
is lost, 1t Is not because God pushes him
off; 1t Is because he jumps off. In olden
times suicide was buried at the cross
roads, and the people were accustomed
to throw stones upon his grave. So IT
seems to me there may be at this time a
man who is destroying his soul, and as
though the angels of God were here to
bury him at the point where the roads OF
life and death cross each other, throwing
upon the grave the broken law and a
great pile of misimproved privileges SO
that those going by may look at the fear
full mound and learn what suicide 1t is
when an immortal soul for which Jesus
died puts itself out of the way.
When Christ trod this planet with foot
of flesh, the people rushed after him
people who were sick and those who, be-
Ing so sick they could not walk, were
brought by their friends. Here l see
mother holding up her little child, crying:
"Cure this Group, Lord Jesus Cure this
scarlet fever" And others: "Cure this
ophthalmia! Give ease and rest to this
spinal distress! Straighten this club
footw Christ made every house where
he stopped a dispensary. do not be-
lieve that In the 10 centuries which
have gone by since, his heart has
got hard. l feel that we can come now
with all our wounds Of soul and get bis
benedction. o Jesus, here we are! We
want healing. We want sight. We want
health. We want life. "Che whole need
not Il physician, but they that are sick"
Blessed be God that Jesus Christ comes
through this assemblage now, his gar
ments smelling of myrrh"-that means
fragrance-"and aloes"-they mean bit
ter sacri6cial memories-"and cassia'-
that means medicine and cure.
According 30 my text, he comes 'out
of the ivory palaces" You know, or, If
you do not know, will tell you now that
some of the palaces of olden time were
adorned with ivory Ahab and Solomon
had their homes furnished with 1t. The
tusks of African and Asiatic elephants
were twisted into all manners of shapes,
and there were stairs of ivory and chairs
of ivory and tables of ivory and floors of
ivory and pillars of ivory and windows of
ivory and fountains that dropped into
basins of ivory land rooms that had cell
ings of ivory. Oh, white and overmas-
tering beauty! Green tree branches
sweeping the white curbs. Tapestry
trailing the snowy floors. Brackets of
light flashing on the lustrous surround
ings. Silvery music ripping on the
beach of the arches. The mere thought
of it almost stuns my brain, and you say:
ooh, If I could only have walked over
such floors! If could have thrown my
self in such a chair! If could have
heard the drip and dash of those foun-
tains!" You shall have something better
than that If you only let Christ introduce
you. From that place he came, and to
that place he proposes to transport you,
for his garments smell of myrrh and
aloes and cassia out Of the ivory pal
aces" What place heaven must be!
The Tuilercs of the French, the Windsor
Al ~ srJ Goa rts | Inn,