The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-09-07
BENTON. LOUISIANA. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER Z, 1899

is more imperial than Caesars, more
musical than Beethoyen's, more con-
| quering than Charlemagne's, more elo-
| quent than Cicero's. It throbs with all
life. 1t weeps with all pathos. 1t
groans with all pain. 1t stoops with all
| condescension. It breathes with all
perfume. Who like Jesus to set a
broken bone, to pity homeless or
phan. to nurse sick man, to take q
prodigal back without any scolding, to
illumine cemetery all plowed with
graves, to make queen unto God out
| OF the lost woman, to catch the tears of
human sorrow in lachrymatory that
shall never be broken? Who has such
an eye to see our need, such a lip to kiss
| away our sorrow, such hand to snatch
us out of the fire, such foot to trample
| our enemies, such heart to embrace
all our necessities? struggle for some
metaphor with which to express Him
He is not like the bursting forth of a
| full orchestra; that is too loud. He is
not like the 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 a softer type, a
gentler comparison. We have seemed
to 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 haIds and rushed
through the streets because he he'd
found the solution of a mathematical
problem, how will you feel leaping
from the fountain of a 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-
flee 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 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 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? Yhe sympathy Of Saviour's
heart going out to the leper and the
adultress; but who soothed Christ? He
had a fit place neither to be born nor to
die. A poor babe! A poor lad! A poor
young man! Not SO much as taper 10
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 agohies 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 a distorted countenance and a
shudder from head to foot and a
| gurgling strangulation. Aloes! Aloes!
Nothing but aloes! All this for Him
self? All this to. get the fame in the
world of being 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 10
raise me and you to Heavtn. Eecarse
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.
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 ad joining islands.
You do not care to hear what kind of a
flower it had or what kind of stalk. II
| 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
nv text we find Christ coming with gar
ments that smell of cassia, ii suggests
TO me the healing and curative power Of
the Son Of God. "Oh," you say, '.non