The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-01-09

ment or those SuHerlnSS. 1 VIII 90 QoW0
and reform the world. will medicate it's
wounds. I will calm its frenzy. l will
wash off it's pollution. | will become in.
carnated. will take on N.Y. shoulders and
upon NY brow and into My heart the con-
sequences of that worlds misbehavior.
start now, and between My arrival at
Bethlehem and NV ascent from Olivet I
will weep their tears and suffer their
griefs and die their death. Farewell, My
throne, My crown, My sceptre, My angelic
environment, My heaven, till I have
finished the work and come back" God
was never conquered but once, and that
was when He was conquered by His own
love. "God is love-"
In this day, when the creeds of churches
are being revised, let more emphasis be
put upon the thought of my text. Let it
appear at the beginning of every creed
and at the close. The ancients used to tell
of a great military chieftain who, about
to 90 to battle, was clad in armor, helmet
on head and sword at side, and who put
out his arms to give farewell embrace to
his child, and the child, affrighted at
his appearance, ran shrieking away. Then
the father put off the armor that caused
the alarm, and the child saw who he was
and ran into his arms and snuggled against
his heart. Creeds must not have too much
iron in their make up, terrorizing rather
than attracting. They must not hide the
smiling face and the warm heart of our
Father, God. Let nothing imply that
there is a sheriff at every door ready to
make arrest, but over US all and around
US all mercy that wants to save and save
now.
If one paragraph of the creed seems to
take you, like child, out of the arms of
a father, let the next paragraph put you
in the arms of q mother. AS one whom
his mother comforteth 30 will I comfort
YOU" Oh, what a mother we have in
God! And my text is the lullaby sung to
us when we are i'll or when we are NAL
treated or when we are weary or when we
are trying to. do better or when we are be-
reft or when we ourselves lie down to the
last sleep. We feel the warm cheek of the
mother against our cheek, and there sounds
in it the hush of many mothers, God ia
love-"
Fear is the dominant thought in all
false religions. For that the devotecs cut
themselves with lances and swing on iron
hooks and fall under wheels and hold up
the right arm 80 long that they cannot
take it down. Fear, british fear! But love
is the queen in our religion.
For that we build temples. For that we
kneel at our altars. For that We contrib
ute our aims. For that martyrs suffered
at Brussels market plae, and at Lucknow
and Cawnpur and Pekin. That will yet
bejewel the round earth, and put it an
emerald on the great, warm, throbb!n2
heart of God.
Do you want more proof that God is
love-" Yea, disinterested love. No COM
E. -. ord
its sacrifices. But I call that back. The
world did pay Him. 1t paid Him on Cal.
vary, paid Him with brambles on the
brow and four spikes, two for the hands
and two for the feet, and one spear for
the side near the heart; paid Him in exc
Grafton, paid Him with straw pillow in
barn and a cross on hill, paid Him with
a third of century of maltreatment and
hardship save one year-yea, is paying
Him yet-in rejecting His mission OF
mercy.
Having dethroned other kings the world
would like to dethrone the King of kings.
But He knew what He was coming to
when He left the portals of pearl and the
land where the sun never goes down: Yes;
He knew the world, how cod it is, and
knew pain, how sharp.it is, and expiatlon,
how eXcruciating it is.
Out of vast eternity He looked forward
and saw Pilates criminal courtroom and
the rocky bluff with three crosses and the
lacerated body in mortuary surroundings,
and heard the thunders toll at the funeral
of heavens favorite, and understood that
the palaces of eternity would hear the
sorrow of bereft God.
What do the Bible and the church litur.
Ges mean when they say, He descended
into hell?" They mean that His soul left
His sacred body for awhile and went
down into the prison of moral night and
swung back it's great door and lifted the
chain of captivity and felt the awful lash
that would have come down on the worlds
back, and wept the tears of an eternal
sacrifice, and took the bolt of divine indig-
nation against sin into Himself and, hav-
ing vanquished death and hell, came out
and came up, having achieved an eternal
rescue if we will accept it. -.
Read it slowly, read it soemnly, read it
with tears, "He descended into hell" He
knew what kind of pay He would get for
exchanging celestial splendor for Bethle-
hem caravansary, and He dared all and
came, the most illustrious example in all
the ages of disinterested love.
Yea, it was most expensive love. There
is much human love that costs nothing,
nothing of fatigue, nothing of money, moth.
ing OF sacrifice, nothing of humiliation.
But the most expensive movement that
the heavens ever made was this expedition
salyatory. It cost the life of King.
It put the throne of God in bereavement.
It set the universe aghast 1t made om-
impotence weep and bleed and shudder. 1t
taxed the resources of the richest of all
empires. It meant angelic forces detailed
to fight forces demoniac. 1t put three
worlds into sharp collision-one world to
save, another to resist and another to de-
stroy. It charged on the spears and rang
with the battleaxes of human and diabolic
hate.
Had the expedition of love been de-
feated the throne of God would have fall
en-, and Satan would have mounted into
su premacv, and sin would have forever
triumphed, and mercy would have been
forever dead The tears and blood of the
martyr of the heavens were only part OF
the infinite expense to which the Godhead
went when it proposed to save the world.
Alexander the Great, with his host, was
marching on Jerusalem to capture and
plunder it. The inhabitants came out
clothed in white, led on by the high priest,
wearing a miter and glittering breastplate
on which was emblazoned the name of
God, and Alexander, seeing that word,
bowed and halted his army, and the city
was saved.
And if we had the love of God written
in all our hearts and on all our lives and
on all our banners at the sight of 1t the
hosts of temptation would fall back, and
we would go on from victory unto victory
until we stand in Zion and before God.
I.eander swan across the Hellespont
guided by the light which Hero the fair
held from one of her tower windows, and
what Tablespoons of earthly struggles can
we not breast as long as we can see the
torch of divine love held from the tower
windows of the King! Let love Of God
to us and our love to God clasp hands this
minute o ye dissatisfied and distressed