The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1900-06-02

many wonderful things, but what
chemist at wedding when the wine
gave out could change pail of water
into cask of wine? What human
voice could command a school of fish?
Yet here Is a voice that marshals the
scaly tribes, until in place where
they had let down the net and pulled
II up with no fish in it they let it down
again, and the disciples lay hold and
began to pull, when by reason of the
multitude of fish the net broke. Ma
ture is his servant. The fowers-he
twisted them into his sermons; the
winds-they were his lullaby when he'
slept in the boat; the rain-it hung.
glitteringly on the thick foliage of the
parallels; the star of Bethlehem-it
sang Christmas carol over his birth;
the rocks-they beat a dirge at his
death. Behold his victory over the
grave! The hinges of the family vault
become very rusty because they are
never opened except to take another
in. There is knob on the outside of
the door of the sepulcher, but none on
of death. He enters that realm and
says: Daughter of Jairus, sit up!"
| and she sits up. To Lazarus, "Come
forth" and he came forth. To the
widows sonHe said: "Getup from that
bier!" and he goes home with his moth
err. Then Jesus snatched up the keys
of death and hung them to his girdle
and cried until all the graveyards of
the earth heard Him: 30 Death, I
will be thy plague! o Grave, l will be
thy destruction"
No man could go through all the OBJ
stacles have described, you say, with
out having nature supernatural. In
that arm, amid its muscles and nerves
| and bones, were intertwisted the ener-
| gies of omnipotence. In the syllables
of that voice there was the emphasis
of the eternal God. That foot that
nesaret shall stamp kingdoms of dark
ness into demolition. This poverty
struck Christ owned Augustus, owned
the sanhedrin, owned Tiberias, owned
all the castles on it's beach and all the
skies that looked down into its water,
owned all the earth and all the heavens.
To him of the plain coat belonged the
robes of celestial royalty. He who
walked the road to Emmaus, the light
nings were the fireshod steeds of his
chariot. Yet there are those who look
on and see Christ turn water into wine,
and they say: ut 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 and the trumpets shall
call, peal on peal? In the time of
Theodosius the Great there was a
great assault made upon the divinity
of Jesus Christ, and during that time
son to sit on the throne with him and
be copartner in the government of
the empire, and one day the old bish-
op 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 government" Then
the old bishop turned to the young
man and said: 1.-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 Theodosius the
Great and said to him: "You are Of
Tended with me because I don't pay
the same honor to your son, whom
you have made copartner in the
government of this empire, the same
honor T pay to you, and yet you en-
courage multitudes of people in your
realm to 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
sympathizer. You cannot tell
Christ anything new about hardship.
do not think that wide ages of
eternity will take the scars from
Hia punctured side and His lacerated
temples and His sore hands: You will
never have a 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 inflamed 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, howl
ing down His prayers, and snuffing up
the smell of blood. Dye faint hearted,
O We troubled. o We prosecuted one,
here is a heart that can sympathize
with you!
Again, and lastly, learn from all
that has been said to-day 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 cap
tivity from which He was resolved to
extricate 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 celes-
tials one being who would do as much
for you. 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