The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1900-12-27
quered but once, and that was when he
was conquered by his own love. God
iS Inv

Is rove.
Christ the Comforter
If one paragraph Of the creed seems
to take you. like child, out Of the
arms Of father, let the next para
graph put you in the arms of moth
err. AS che whom his mother COM
sortcth. so will l comfort you" Oh
what mother we have in God. Ana
my text IS the lullaby sung to us when
we are Ill, or when we. are maltreated,
or when we are weary, or when we are
trying to DO better, or VIXEN we are be-
reft, or when we ourselves lie down to
the last sleep. We feel the warm cheek
CT the mother against our cheek, and
there sounds in it the hush Of many
mothers: God is love"
This was the reagon the Bible was
written. The world needs no inspired
page TO tell it that God will chastiso
sin, for that is proved in the life of
many an offender. You can look
through the wicket of any prison and
see the fact which the world under
stood thousands OF years before Solo
mon wrote it-'i-he way Of the trans
gressor is hard" The world needed
no Bible to tell it that God is omnipo-
tent, for any one who has seen Mont
| Blame or Niagara or the Atlantic ocean
| in cyclone knows that The world
| needed no Bible to tell it CT Gods VS.
dom. for everything, from a SPIDERS
web to the upholstery Of summers
sunset, from the globe Of Gewdrop to
the rounding of a world. declares that.
! But there was one secret about God
that was wrapped up in scroll of
parchment, and it staid there until
apostolic hand unrollea that scroll,
and let out upon the world the start
ling fart, which it could never have
surmlsed, never guessed, never expect
! ed, that he loved our human race so
ardently that he will pardon sin and
subdue the offender with a divine kiss
and turn foaming malefactors into
worshipers before the throne. Oh,
am SO glad that the secret is out and
that 1t can never again be yelled! Tell
1t to all the SHINING, suffering, lying
race; tell it in song and sermon, on
canvas, and in marble, on arch and
Pillar; tell it all around the earth
God is love-"
| The Domination OF Fear.
Notice that the wisest men OF the ma
tons for thousands of years did not,
amid their idolatries, make something
to represent this feeling, this emotion.
They had Jove. representing might;
| tha Df
the goddess of wisdom; Venus, the
goddess Of base appetite; Ceres, the
| goddess of corn, and an Odin, an an
Osiris, and Titan. and Juggernaut,
and whole pantheons Of gods and god
desses, but no shrine, no carved image,
no sculptured form has suggested
god of pure love. That was beyond
human brain. 1t took God to think
that, God to project that, God let
down from heaven to achieve that.
Fear is the dominant thought in all
false religions. For that the devotees
cut themselves with lances and swing
on iron hooks and fall under wheels
and hold up the right arm SO long that
they cannot take it down. Fear, brut-
ish fear! But love is the queen in our
religion. For that we build temples.
| For that we kneel at our affairs. For
that we contribute our aims. For that
martyrs suffered at Brussels market
place and at Lucknow and Cawnpur
and Pekin. That will yet bejewel the
round earth and put it an emerald On
the great, warm, throbbing heart of
God.
Proof That God Is Love.
| Do you want more proof that God
| is love?" Yea, disinterested love. No
compensation for it's bestowal. No re-
ward for its sacrifices. But 1 call that
back. The world did pay him. 1t paid
him on Calvary, paid him with BRAN
bles on the brow and four spikes, two
for the hands and two for the feet, and
one spear for the side near the heart;
paid him in execration; paid him with
| straw pillow in barn and a cross on
hill; paid him with third of CEN
tury of maltreatment and hardship
save one year-yea. is paying him yet
in rejection of his mission Of mercy
| Having dethroned other kings, the
world would like to dethrone the King
I, of Kings. But he knew what he was
coming to when he left the portals of
pearl and the land where the sun
never goes down. Yes, he knew the
world, how cold it is, and knew pain,
how sharp it is, and the night, how
dark it is, and eXpiation, how excru-
ciating it is. Out Of vast eternity he
looked forward and saw Pilates Grim
inal courtroom, and the rocky bluff
with three crosses, and the lacerated
body in mortuary surroundings, and
heard the thunders toll at the funeral
of heavens favorite, and understood
that the palaces of eternity would hear
the sorrow of bereft God.
| What do the Bible and the church
liturgies mean when they say, "He de-
scended into hell?" They mean that
his soul left his sacred body for awhile
and went down into the poison of
moral night, and swung back its great
door, and lifted the chain of captivity,
and felt the awful lash that would have
come down on the worlds back, and
wept the tears of an eternal sacrifice,
and took the bolt of divine indigna-
ton against sin into himself, and, hav-
ing vanquished death and hell, came
out and came up, having achieved an