Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1899-08-10


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 mis- 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 ano
rushed through the streets, because he
had found the solution of mathemat
ical problem, how will you feel leap
ing from the fountain of a savior's
mercy and pardon washed clean and
made white as snow, when the question
has been solved: How can my soul
De saved?" Naked, frost bitten, storm
iashed soul, let Jesus this hour throw
around thee the garments that smell
of myrrh, and aloes. and cassia out Of
ivory palaces"
| Your second curiosity is to know
why the robes of Jesus are odorous
with aloes, There is some difference
OF opinion about where these aloes
grow, what is the color of the flower,
what is the particular appearance of
the herb. Suffice 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 suggest to me the bitterness
Of Savior'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 hosiery the first an I'M
just 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 clear
through to the hollow of the foot?
Oh, long deep, bitter pilgrimage!
! Aloes. aloes!
According to 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 Sol
onion had their homes furnished with
1t. The tusks of African and Asiatic
| elephants were twisted into all man.
ners of shapes, and there were stairs
of ivory, and chairs of ivory, and ia
bles of ivory, and floors of ivory, and
| pillars Of ivory, and windows of ivory,
and fountains that dropped into basins
of ivory, and rooms that had ceilings
of ivory Oh, white and overmastering
beauty! Green tree branches sweep
ing the white curbs. Tapestry trailing
the snowy floors. Brackets of light
| flashing; on the lustrou5 surroundings.
Silvery music ripping on the beach of
the arches. The mere thought Of it al
| most stuns my brain, and you say:
oh, if | could only have walked over
such floors, If | could have thrown
myself into such a chair! If | could
have heard the drip and dash of those
fountains," 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 palaces" What a place
| heaven must be. The Tuileries CT the
French. the Windsor castle of the Eng
lish the Spanish Alhambra, the Rus
sian Kremlin, are mere dungeons COM
| pared with it! Not so many castles on
either side the Rhine as on both sides
of the river of God-the ivory palaces!
One for the angels, insufferably bright,
winged, fire-eyed, tempest-charioted
one for the martyrs, with bloOdred
robes from under the altar; one for
the King, the steps of his palace the
crown of the church militant; one for
the singers, who lead the one hundred
and forty and four thousand; one for
you, ransomed from sin; one for me,
plucked from the burning Oh, the
ivory palaces!
Today it seems to me as if the win
| dows of those palaces were illumined
for some great victNy, and look and
see, climbing the stairs of ivory, and
walking on floors of ivory, and look
ing from the windows of ivory, some
whom we knew and loved on earth
Yes, l know them. There are father
and mother, not eighty-two years and
seventy-nine years, as when they left
us, but blithe and young as when on
their marriage day. And there are
brothers and sisters, merrier than when
We used to romp across the meadows
together. The cough gone. The can
Ger cured The errsipelas healed. The
heartbreak over. Oh how fair they
are in the ivory palaces! And your
dear little children that went out from
you-Christ did not let one of them
drop as he lifted them. He did not
wrench one of them from you. No.
They went as from one they loved we'll
to One whom they loved better. If
should take your little child and press
its soft face against my rough cheek,
might keep it little while; but when
you, the mother, came along it would
struggle to go with you. And so you
stood holding your dying child when
Jesus passed by in the room, and the
little one sprang out to greet him. That
is all. Your Christian dead did not go
down into the dust, and the gravel,
and the mud. Though it rained all that
funeral day, and the water came up to
the wheels hub as you drove out to
the cemetery, 1t made no difference to
them, for they stepped from the home
| - 49,