Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1900-07-06

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which shall be prolonged in everlast
ing chorals He declared: II have fin
ished the work which Thou gavest Me
to do"
See Him victorious over the forces
of nature. The sea is a crystal sep
ulcher. 1t swallowed the Central
America, the president and the Span
ish armada as easily as any fly that
ever floated on it. The inland lakes
are fully as terrible in their wrath
Some of us who have sailed on it
know that Lake Galilee, when aroused
in a storm, is overwhelming, and yet
that sea crouched in His presence and
licked His feet. He knew all the
waves and the wind. When He beck
oned, they came. When he frowned.
they fled. The heel of His foot made
no indentation on the solidifed wa
ter Medical science has wrought
great changes in rheumatic limbs and
diseased blood, but when the mus
cles are entirely withered no human
power can restore them, and when a
limb is once dead it is dead. But
here is paralytic-his hand lifeless.
Christ says to him: stretch forth
thy hand" and he stretches it forth.
In the eye infirmary how many dis
eases of that delicate organ have been
cured? But Jesus says to one blind,
"Be open!" and the light of heaven
rushes through gates that have never
before been opened, The frost or an
AK may kill tree, but Jesus smites one
dead with word. Chemistry may do
many wonderful things, but what
chemist at wedding when the wine
gave out could change pail of water
into a cask of wine? What human
voice could command school of fish? ?
Yet here is voice that marshals the
scaly tribes, until in place where
they had let dowa 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 a Christmas carol over his birth
the rocks-they beat dirge at his
nnhA11 1,;g uio N
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
the inside. Here comes the conqueror
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
er. 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: 20 Death, l
will be thy plague! o Grave, will be
thy destruction"
My subject also reassnres 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
His punctured side and His lacerated
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 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 snufiing up
the smell of blood. Dye faint hearted
o We 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 awfully in earnest. II it had not
been momentous mission He would
have turned back from it disgusted and
discouraged. He saw you in cap
tivity from which He was resolved tc
extricate you, though it cost Him al
sweat. all tears, all blood. He came
great way to save you. He came
from Bethlehem here, through the
place of skulls, through the charncI
house, through banishment. There
was not among all the ranks of celes
tals one being who would do as much
for you. ! lay His crushed heart al
your feet to-day. Let it not be told
in Heaven that you deliberately put
your foot on it. While it will take
all the ages Of eternity to celebrate
Christ's triumph, / am here to make
the startling announcement that be
cause of the rejection of this mission
on the part of some of you all tha
magnificent work of garden and eros
and grave is, so far as you are con
cerned, failure. Helena, the empress
went to the Holy Land to find the eros
of Christ. Getting to the Holy Lane
there were three crosses eXcavated
and the question was, which of th'
crosses was Christ's cross. They tool
a dead body, tradition says, and pu
it upon one of the crosses, and ther'
J was no life, and they took the deaf
body and put it upon another cross
and there was no life. But, tradition
says, when the dead body was put VI
against the third cross, it sprang int
life. The dead man lived again. oh
that the life giving power of the Sol
of God might dart your dead soul init
an eternal life, beginning this day
awake, thou that sleepest, and ris
from the dead, and Christ shall Civ
thee Hfe!" Live now! And live for