The Penn's Grove record., 1899-03-31

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your phtlence Wnen the tops anu tuo
strings and the shells were left mid hoor;
but, oh, you would be willing to have the
trinkets scattered all over the floor again
If they were scattered by the same hands.
With what a ruthless plowshare bereaye-
mont rips up the hearth But Jesus knows
all about that. You cannot tell Him any
thing TO- in regard to bereavement. He
had only a few friends. and when He lost
one 1t brought tears to His eyes. Lazarus
had often entertained Him at his house.
Now Lazarus is dead and buried, and
Christ breaks down with emotion, the con-
vulsion OF grief ~shuddering through allthe
ages of bereavement. Christ knows what
it is to go through the house missing d
familiar inmate. Christ knows what 1t is
to see an unoccupied place at the table.
We're there not four Of them-Mary and
Martha and Christ and Lazarus2 Four OF
them. But whereas Lazarus2 Lonely and
afflicted Christ, His great loving eyes filed
with tearsl Oh, yes, yesl He knows all
about the loneliness and the heartbreak.
He took the vinegar
Then there is the sourness OF the death
hour. Whatever else we may escape, that
acid sponge will be pressed to our lips. 1
sometimes have a curiosity to know how
| will behave when l come to die. Whether
| will be calm or excited, whether 1 will be
filled with "Reminiscences or with anticipa-
ton. | cannot say. But come to the
point | must and Won must. An officer
from the future world will knock at the
door of our hearts and serve on US the
writ of eiectment, and we will lave to sur
render. And we will wake up after these
autumnal and wintry and vernal and sum-
merry glories have vanished from our
vision. We will wake up into a realm
which has only one season, and that the
season of everlasting love.
But you say: 81 don't want to break out
from my present associations. 1t is so
chilly and so damp to go down the stairs
of that vault. l don't want anything
drawn SO tightly over my eyes. II there
We're only some way OF breaking through
the partition between worlds without tear
ing this body all to shredsl l wonder il
the surgeons and the doctors cannot com
pound Il mixture by which this body and
soul can all the time be kept together. Is
there no escape from this separation"
None, absolutely none. A great many men
tumble through the gates of the future, as
1t were, and we do not know where they
have gone, and they only add gloom
n mystery to the passage, but Jesus
Christ SO nightly stormed the gates of
that future world that they have never
since been closely shut. Christ knows
what 1t is to leave this world, Of the
beauty of which He was more apprecia-
tive than we ever could be. He knows
the exquisiteness of the phosphorescence
Of the sea; He trod it. He knows the
glorles of the midnight heavens, for they
were the spangled canopy Of His wilder
ness pillow. He knows about the lilies; He
twisted them into His sermon. He knows
about .he fowls of the air; they whirred
they way through His discourse. He knows
about the sorrows of leaving this beautiful
world. Not 4 taper was kindled in the
darkness. He died physlcianless. He died
in cold sweat and dizziness and hem
mortgage and agony, that have put Him in
sympathy with all the dying. He goes
FIJI rOuO oh ChristanhOno and UotharS nm tho
stings out of all the death pillows, and He
puts them under His own neck and head.
To all those to whom life has been an
anerbity-a dose they could not swallow,
a draft that set their teeth on edge and a.
rasping-I preach the omnipotent sympa-
thy OF Jesus Christ. The sister OF Her
sehell. the astronomer, used to spend much
of her time polishing the telescopes
through which he brought the distant
worlds nigh, and it is my ambition now
this hour to clear the lens OF your spiritual
vision so that, looking through the dark
night of your earthly troubles you
may behold the glorious constella-
ton of a Saviour's mercy and
a Saviour's love. Oh, my friends, do not
try to carry all your Ills alorel Do not put
your poor shoulder under the ApenRines
when the Almighty Christ is ready tel lift
up all your burdens. When you have a
trouble of any kind, you rush this way and
that way, and you wonder what this man
will say about 1t and what that man will say
about it, and you try this prescription and
that prescription and the other prescrlp-
ton. oh, why do you not go straight to
the heart of Christ. knowing that for our
own SHINING and suffering race He took the
vinegar?
There was a vessel that had been tossed
on the seas for a great many weeks and
been disabled, and the supply OF water
gave out, and the crew were dying OF
thirst. After many days they, saw q sail
against the sky. They signaled it. When
the vessel came nearer, the people Oh the
suffering ship cried to the captain of the
other vessel: "Send us some waterl We
are dying for lack of wateri" And the
captain on the vessel that was hailed re-
spcnded: dip your buckets where you are.
You are in the mouth of the Amazon, and
there are scores OF miles of fresh water
all arould about you and hundreds OF
feet deepl' And then they dropped their
buckets over the side OF the vessel and
brought up the clear, bright, fresh water
and put out the fire OF their thirst. So I
hail you to-day, after Il long and perilous
voyage, thirsting us you are for pardon,
and thirsting for comfort, and thirsting
for eternal life, and l ask you what is the
use of your going il that death-struck
state, while all around you is the deep,
clear, wide, sparkling food of Gods SYM
pathetic mercy? Oh, dip your buckets
anu a hAAt NV FAefNh
will. let him come and take of the water oil
life freely
Yet there are people who refuse this
divine sympathy, and they try to fight
their own battles, and drink their own
vinegar, and carry their own burdens. and
their life, instead of being a triumphal
march from victory to victory, will be n
hobbling on from defeat to defeat until
they make final surrender to retributive
Oh, 1 wish l could to-day gather
in my arms all the woes of men and
women, alltheir heartaches, all their disap-
polntments, all their chagrins, and Just
them right to the feet of a sympathiz-
ing Jesus! He took the vinegar. Mana
Sahib, after he had lost his last battle
in India, fell back into tho jungles OF Iheri
-jungles so full of malaria that no mortal
can live there. He carried with him also q
ruby of great lustre and of great value.
He died in those iungles. His body was
never found, and the ruby has never yet
been recovered. And | fear tina to-day
there are some who will fall back from
this subject into the siekening, killing jun
giles of their sin, carrying a gem CT inhn-
lite value-a priceless soul to be lost for
ever. Oh, that that ruby might Hash In the
eternal coroEationl But, no. There are
some, I fear, who turn away from this
offered mercy and comfort and divine
sympathy Notwithstanding that Christ, for
all who accept His grace, trudged the long
way, and suffered the decorating thongs,
and received in His face the expectora-
lions of the filthy mob, and for the guilty,
and the discouraged, and the ~diseonforted
of the race took the vinegar. May God
Almighty break the intatuation and lead
you out nto the strong hope, and the good
and the glorious sunshine OF this
triumphal gospel!