Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-05-28
thy plague! o grave, :, iii lie thy de-
structiOnr'
Supernatural nature.

No man could go through all the OBJ
stacles l have described. you say, with
out having a nature supernatural. In
that arm, amid it's muscles and nerves
and bones, were inteftwisted the ener-
gies of Omnipotence. In the syllables
of that voice there was the emphasis
of the eternal God. That foot that
walked the deck of the ship in Gennes-
aret shall stamp Kingdoms of darkness
into demolition. This poverty struck
Christ owned Augustus, owned the
sanhedrin, owned Liberals, owned all
the castles on it's beach and all the
skies that looked down into it's water
owned all the earth and all the heav-
ems. To him Of the plain coat belonged
the robes of celestial royalty. He who
walked the road to EmmauS the light
nings were the fire shod steeds of his
chariot. Yet there are those who look
on and see Christ turn water into wine,
and they say, "It was sleight of hand?'
And they see Christ raise the dead to
life, and they say: Easily explained;
not really dead; playing dead!' And
they see Christ giving sight to the
blind man, and they say, "ClairvOyant
doctor!" Oh, what shall they do on
the day when Christ rises up in judg
ment and the hills shall rock and the
trumpets shall call, peal on peal? In
the time of TheodOsius the Great there
was great assault made upon the di-
vinity of Jesus Christ, and during that
time Theodosius the Great called his
own son to sit on the throne with him
and be a copartner in the government
of the empire, and one day the old
bishop came and bowed down before
TheodOsius, the emperor, and passed
out of the room, and the emperor was
offended, saying to the old bishop,
"Why didn't you pay the same honor
to my son, who shares with me in the
governments" Then the old bishop
turned to the young man and said,
'"The Lord bless thee, my young man."
but still paid him no such honor as he
had paid to the emperor. And the en-
peror was still offended and displeased
when the old bishop turned to TheOdO-
sius the Great and said to him, you
are offended with me because 1 don't
pay the same honor to your son, whom
you have made copartner in the gov
eminent of this empire, the same hon
or pay to you, and yet you encourage
multitudes of people in your realm to
deny the Son of God equal authority,
equal power, with God the Father"
Live Forever.
My subject also treasures US of the
fact that in all our struggles we have
a sympathizer. You cannot tell Christ
anything new about hardship. l do
not think that wide ages of eternity
will take the scars from his punctured
side and his lacerated temples and his
sore hands. You will never have q
burden weighing so many pounds as
that burden Christ carried up the
bloody hill. You will never have any
suffering worse than he endured when,
with tongue hot and cracked and in
famed and swollen, he moaned, 81
thirst" You will never be surrounded |
by worse hostility than that which I
stood around Christ's feet, foaming, re-
Wiling, livid with rage, bowling down |
his prayers and snuffing up the smell |
Of blood. o We faint hearted, o We |
troubled, o We prosecuted one, here is |
a heart that van sympathize with you!
Again, and lastly, l learn from all |
that has been said today that Christ |
was awfully in earnest. If it had not |
been a momentous mission, he would |
have turned back from it disguised and |
discouraged. He saw you in a captivi- |
ty from which he was resolved to eX- |
tricate you, though it cost him all /
sweat, all tears, all blood. He came a |
great way to save you. He came from |
Bethlehem here, through the place of |
skulls, through the charnel house, |
through Punishment. There was not |
among all the ranks of celestials one |
being who would do as much for you.
I lay his crushed heart at your feet to-
day. Let it not be told in heaven that !
you deliberately put your foot ON it.
While it will take all the ages of eter- |
nifty to celebrate Christ's triumph, 1 |
am here to make the startling an
nouncement that because of the rejec- |
ton Of this mission on the part of some |
of you all that magnificent work Of |
garden and cross and grave is, so far |
as you are concerned, a failure. Hell |
ena, the empress, went to the Holy |
Land to find the cross of Christ. Get
ting to the Holy Land, there were three
crosses eXcavated, and the question
was which of the crosses was ChriStS
cross. They took a dead body, tradi-
ton says, and put it upon one of the |
crosses, and there was no life, and they
took the dead body and put it upon an
other cross, and there was no life; but,
tradition says, when the dead body was
put up against the third cross it sprang
into life. The dead man lived again.
Oh, that the life giving power of the
Son of God might dart your dead soul
into an eternal life, beginning this day!
awake, thou that sleepest, and rise
from the dead, and Christ shall give
thee life!" Live now! And live for