Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-06-21

l
had probable never seen prince or shaken
hands with nobleman.
| The only extraordinary person we know
OF az being in His company was His own
| motner, and She was so poor that, in the
most delicate and solemn hour that comes
to womans soul, she was obliged to lie
down among drivers grooming the beasts
of burden.
Again. remark, there was no organiza-
tion In His behalf, and that wus against
Him. When men propose any great work.
they band together. they write letters of
| agreement, they take oaths OF featy, and
the more complete the organization the
more and complete the success. Here was
one who went forth without any or9aniza-
tion and alone. If men had mind to join
| IN His company, all right; IL they had
mind not to join In His company. all we'll.
II they came. they were greeted with no
were sent with no bitter anathema. Peter
departed, and Christ turned and looked ut
| him; that WAS all.
All this was against Him. Did any one
ever undertake such an enterprise amid
such infinite embarrassments and by such
modes? And yet am here to say it ended
in IA complete triumph. Notwithstanding
His worldly occupation, His poverty, His
plain face, His unpretending garb, the
| fact that He was schooless, the fact that
He had brief life, the fact that He was
not accompanied by any visible organiza-
/ tion--notwithstanding all that, in an ex-
hilaration which shall be prolonged in
everlasting chorals, He declared, II have
finished the work which Thou gavest Me
| to do"
| In the eye infrmary how many diseases
OF that delicate organ have been cured2
| But Jesus says to one Elind, 'Be open!'
and the light of heaven rushes through
gates that have never before been opened.
Tue frost OF an ak may kill tree, but
Jesus smites one dead with a word.
|
things, but what chemist at q wedding,
when the wine gave out, could change Il
pail OF water into cask OF wine? What
human voice could command Il school of
| fish? Yet here Is q voice that marshals
the scally tribes until, in place where
they had let down the net and pulled it
up with no fish in it, they let it down
again, and the disciples lay hold and be-
gan to pull, when, by reason Of the multi
tude of fish, the net broke. Nature is His
servant. The flowers-He twisted them in
to His sermons; the winds-they were His
lullaby when He slept in the boat; the rain
1t hung glittering on the thick foliage of the
| PARALLELS; the star OF Bethlehem-it sang
a Christmas carol over His Firth; the rocks
they beat dirge ut His death. Behold
His victory over the grave! The hinges Of
the family vault become very rusty be-
cause they are never opened except to take
another in. There is knob on the out
side of the door OF the sepulcher, but none
on the inside. Here comes the Conqueror
of Death. He enters that realm and says,
| Daughter of Jnirns, sit up!' and she Sits
up. To Lazarus, "Come forthl" and he
came forth. To the widows son He said,
Get up from that bier!'' and he goes
home with his mother. Then Jesus
snatched up the keys of death and hung
them to His girdle and cried until all the
graveyards OF the earth beard Him: 80
death. will be thy plagued grave, will
be thy destruction!'
No man could go through all the OBJ
| stacles have described you say without
| having nature supernatural. In that
arm, amid its muscles and nerves and
bones, were intertwisted the energies of
omnipotence. In the syllables of that
voice there WIS the emphasis of the
eternal God. That foot that walked the
| deck OF the ship In Gennesaret shall stamp
kingdoms OF darkness into demolition.
This poverty struck Christ owned Angus
tus, owned the sanhedrin, owned Tiberias,
owned all the castles on its beach and all
the skies that looked down into its water
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 judgment and the hills shall rock
aud the trumpets shall call, peal on peal?
In the time O. Theodosus the Great there
WAS a great assault made upon the divin-
ity OF Jesus Christ, and during that time
Theodosius the Great called his own son to
sit on the throne with him and be a copart-
ner 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 gov
ernment?" 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 rs he had paid to the Emperor.
And the Emperor was still offended and
| displeased when the old bishop turned to
| Theodosius the Great and said to him,
"You are offended with me because I don't
| pny the same honor to your sor, whom you
| have made copartner in the government of
this empire, the same honor l pay to you,
| and yet you encourage multitudes of peo-
pie in your realm tc deny the Son of God
equal authority, equal power, with God the
| Father"
| My subject also treasures US OF the fact
| that in all our struggles we have sympa-
thizer. You cannot tell Christ anything
new about hardship. / do not think that
wide ages of eternity will take the scars
from His punctured side and His lncerated
temples and His sore hands. You will never
have burden weighing SO many pounds
MS 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 inGamed and swollen,
He moaned, 81 thirst" You will never be
surrounded by worse hostility than that
which stood around Christ's feet foaming,
revilng, livid with rage, bowling down His
prayers and snuffing up the smell OF blood.
o we faint hearted, o ye troubled, O ye
prosecuted One, here is n heart that can
sympathiZe with you!
Again, and lastly, learn from all that
has been said to-day that Christ was aw-
fully in earnest. II 1t had not been Il mo-
meDtous mission, He would have turned
back from 1t disgusted and discouraged.
he saw you In captivity from which He
was resolved to extricate you, though 1t
cost Him all sweat, all tears, all blood. Ho
came great way to save you. He came
| from Bathiehem here. through the nlace