The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1900-06-07


to a woman's soul, she was obliged to lie
down among drivers grooming the beasts
of burden.
Again l remark, there was no organiza :
tion in His behalf, and that was against
Him. When men propose any great work.
they band together, they write letters of
agreement, they take oaths of fealty, and
| the more complete the organization the
more and complete the success. Here was
one who went forth without any organiza-
ton and alone. If men had a mind to join
in His company, all right; If they had
mind not to join in His company, all well.
| II they came, they were greeted with no
loud salutation; il they went away, they
were sent With no bitter anathema. Peter
departed, and Christ turned and looked at
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 l am here to say it ended
in plete triumph. Notwithstanding
His worldly occupation. His poverty, His
plain face, His unpretending garb, the
| fact that He was schoolless, the fact that
He had brief life, the fact that He was
not accompanied by any visible organiza-
ton--notwithstanding all that, In an ex-
hiaratlon which shall be prolonged in
everlasting chorals, He declared 81 have
! finished the work which Thou gavest Ne
to do"
| IN tue eye lDIlrnUTy now many ulSedSS5
| OF that delicate organ have been curedi
But Jesus says to one tlind, "Be openp'
and the light of heaven rushes through
gates that have never before been opened.
The frost OF an AK may kill O tree, but
Jesus smites one dead with word.
Chemistry may do many wonderful
| things, but what chemist at a weddinGl
when the wine gave out. could change 4
| pail of water into a cask of wine? WhR
| human voice could command a school Of
| fish? Yet here is a voice that marshals
the scally tribes until, in a place where
they had let down the net and pulled it
up with no fish in it, they let 1t 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 glitteriDg on the thick foliage Of the
| parallels; the star of Bethlehem-it sang
a Christmas carol over His Firth; the rocks
they beat a dirge at His death. Behold
His victory over the gravel The hinges OF
the family vault become very rusty be-
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 Jairus, sit upl" and she sits
up. To Lazarus, "Come forthi" and he
a,
Get up from that bier!'' and he goes
home with mis- mother. Then Jesus
snatched up the keys OF death and hung
them to His glrde and cried until all me
graveyards of the earth heard Hin: 20
death, will be thy plagued O grave, will
be thy destruction"
No man could SO through all the OBJ
stacles l have described, you say without
having a 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 was 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
owned all the earth ana all the heavens.
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 vine,
and they say, SIT was sleight of hapd,h
And they see Christ raise the dead to'lile,
and they say: Easily explained; not
really dead; playing dead!' And they see
Christ giving sight to the blind man, and
they say, "C!airvoyant doctor!" oh, what
shall they do on the day when Christ rises
up In Judgment and the hills shall rock
and the trumpets shall call, peal on peal?
In the time o. Theodosius the Great there
was great assault made upon the divin-
ity of Jesus Christ, and during that time
rheodosius the Great called his own son to
sit on the throne with him and be Il copart-
ner in the government of the empire, and
one day the old bishop came and bowed
down before Theodosus, 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 as he had paid TO the Emperor.
And the Emperor was still offended and
displeased when the old bishop turned to
Theodosus the Great and said to ham,
''You are offended with me because don't
pay the same honor to your SOC, 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 q sympa-
thizer. You cannot tell Christ anything
new about hardship. l do not think that
wide ages of eternity will take the scars
from MS puucluTel sue anu his lHctTaIbu
temples and His sore hands. You will never
have 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
bot and cracked and inaamed and swollen,
He moaned 81 thirst" You will never be
surrounded by worse hostility than that
which stood around Christ's feet, foaming,
reviling, livid with rage, bowling down His
prayers and snufinG up the smell OF blood.
ye faint hearted, o ye troubled, o ye
prosecuted One, here is 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. If it had not been mo-
mentous mission, He would have turned
back from it disguised and discouraged.
He saw you iu captivity from which He
was resolved to extricate you, though 1t
cost Him all sweat, all tears, all blood. He
came 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.