The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-06-29

SODrlGLy was ulSputG<s whose mission
was secuted, whose com~panionship was
denounced, who was pursued as a babe
and spit upon as a man, who was
howIed at after he was dead. I will
have you go unto him with your bruised
soul in some humble, child prayer say-
ing: Il see thy wounds-wounds of
head. rounds of feet, wounds Of heart.
Now. look at my woun0S and see what
I have suffered and through what
BATTLES I am going, and / entreat thee
by those wounds Of thine sympathize
with me-" And he will sympathize,
n he will help. Go and tell Jesus.
COMFORT FOR THE BEREAVED.
Again, 1 commend the behavior of the
disciples to all the bereaved. How
many in garb OF mourning! Row many
emblems Of sorrow you behold every
where? God has his own way of taking
apart a family. We must get out of
h way of coming generations. We
must get off the stage That others may
come on, and for this reason there is a
long procession reaching down all the
time into the valleys Of the shadows.
This emigration from time into eternity
is so vast an enterprise that We cannot
understand it. Every hour We hear the
clang Of the sepulcheral gate. The sod
must be broken. The ground must be
plowed for resurrection harvest. Etre-
nifty must be peopled. The dust must
Odl 11 tlIA ~
all men once TO die" ThiE emigration
from time into eternity keeps three
fourths of the families OF the earth in
desolation. The air is rent with fare
wells, and the black tasseled vehicles
of death rumble through every street
The body of the child that was folded
so closely to the mothers heart is put
away in the cold and the darkness. The
laughter freezes 10 the girls lip, and
the rose scatters The boy in the harv-
est field of Shunem says: My head!
Ny head,' And they carry him home
TO die on the lap of his mother. Wid
owhood stands with tragedies OF woe
struck into the pallor of the cheek. Or
phanage cries. in vain for father and
mother. oh, the grave is cruel, With
teeth of stone it clutches for its prey.
Between the closing gates of the sepul-
cher our hearts are mangled and
crushed.
Is there any earthly solace? None.
We come to the obsequies, we sit with
the grief stricken, We talk pathetically
to their soul: but soon the obseQuies
have passed, the carriages have left us
at the door, the friends who staid for a
few days are gone, and the heart sits in
desolation listening for the little feet
that will never again patter through the
hall, or looking for the entrance of
those who will never come again-sigh-
ing into the darknesS-ever n anon
coming across some book or garment or
little shoe or picture that arouses form
er association, almost killing the heart.
Long days and nights of suffering wear
out the spirit and pun the bright
ines of life and give haggardneSS to the
face and draw the flesh tight down over
the cheek 70 n draw dark lines un-
der the sunken eye, and the hand is
tremulous, and the voice is husky and
uncertain, and the grief is wearing,
grinding, accommodating, eXhausting.
Now, are such to do? Are they
merely to look up into a braZen and un-
plying sky? Are they to walk a blast
ed heath unfed of stream, unsheltered
by overarching trees? Has God turned
us out on the barren common to die?
Oh, no! no! no. He has not. He comes
with sympathy and kindness and love.
He understands all our grief. He sees
the height and the depth and the length
and the breadth of it. He is the only
one that can fully sympathiZe. Go and
tell Jesus. Sometimes when we have
trouble we go to our friends and we eX-
plain it, and they try to sympathiZe;
but they do not understand it. They
cannot understand it. But Christ sees
all over it and all through it. He not
only counts the tears and records the
grOans, but before the tears started,
before the groans began Christ saw the
inmost hiding place of your sorrow, and
he takes it, and he weighs it, and he
measures it, and he pities it with an
all absorbing pity. Bone of our bone.
Flesh of our flesh. Heart of our heart.
Sorrow of u sorrow. AS long as he
remembers Lazarus grave he will stand
by you in the cemetery. AS long as he
remembers his own heartbreak he will
stand by you in the laceration of your
affections. When he forgets the foot
sore way. the sleeplesS nights, the
weary body, the exhausted mind, the
awful cross, the solemn grave, then he
Will forget you, but not until then.
AN EVER PRESENT FRIEND.
Often when we We're in trouble we
sent for our friends, but they were far
away; they could not get to US. We
wrote to them, Come right away or
telegraphed Take the next train
They came at last , yet were a great
while in coming or perhaps were too
late. But Christ is always ~near-before
you, behind you within you. No moth
er eve threw her arms around her
child with such warmth and ectasy of
affection as Christ has shown toward
you. Close at ~hand-nearer than the
staff upon which you lean. nearer than
the cup you put to your lip. nearer than
the handkerchief with which you wipe
away your tears-I preach him an ever
present, all sympathizing, compassion
ate Jesus. How can you stay away one
from him with your griefs?
&C now. Go and tell Jesus.
1t is often nat our friends have no
power to relieve us. They would very
much like to do it, but they cannot dis
entangle our finances, they cannot cure
our sickness and raise our dead. but
glory be TO God that he to whom the
disciples went has all power in heaven
and on earth, and at our call he will
balk our calamities n at just the
right time in the presence of an ap-
~plauding earth and a resounding heav-
en- will raise our dead. He is mightier
than Herod. He is swifter than the
storm. He is grander than the sea. He
is Vaster than eternity. And every
sword of o om%nipotence will leap
from its scabbard and all the resources
of infinity be exhausted rather than
that Gods child shall not be delivered
when he cries to him for rescue. Sup
pose your child was in trouble. How
much would you endure TO get him out?
You would go through any hardship.
You would say: Il don't care what it
will cost. l must get him out OF that
trouble." Do you think God is not so