The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-03-08

lCoEOoS0&p Acicet kugEG are SC8IS Ill
up and down her injured and immortal
soul which will be remembered on the
day when there shall leap forth for her
Arrangement the live thunderbolts of an
incensed God. When we see a veteran I'M
any land who has lost a limb in battle,
our sympathies are stirred. But, oh,
how many have in the domestic realm|
lost their life and yet are denied q pillow
of dust on which to slumberi Better en-
large your roll Of martyrs. Better adopt
q new mode of counting human scarf6ca-
tons. a broken bone is not half as bad
IS a broken heart.
Marks of Christian servfee.
There are many who can, in the same
sense that Paul uttered it, say, II bear
In my body the marks of the Lord Je-I
sus"-that Is, for the sake of Christ and
his cause they carry scars which keep
their indenture through all time and all
eternity. Do you think that Paul was
accurate when he said that? II YOU have
studied his career, you have no doubt of
it. In his youth he learned how to fash
ion the hair of the Cilician goat into can
vas, a quiet trade, and then went 70 col
lege, the president of which was Cana
Iliel, an institution which scholars say
could not have been very thorough be-
cause OF what they call Paul's imperfect
command of Greek syntax. But his his
tory became exciting on the road to Da-
lmascus, where he was endorsed and
blinded. His conversion was a convul-
sion. Whether that fall from the horse
may nave left a mark upon him / know
not, but the mob soon took after him and
logged and imprisoned and maltreated
him until he had scars more than enough
lfn SJrr tho fr1fhfnlnocS af bic r,ffQr-
ance, Il bear in my body the marks Of
the Lord Jesus"
All Of Paul's suffering was for Christ's
sake. He had intellectual powers which
could have achieved for him all worldly
successes. You see what he could do in
a courtroom when with extemporaneous
speech he made the judicial bench trem-
BILE; when on Mars hill he COMPOUNDED
the Athenian critics; when he preached
amid the excitement of a tumbling peni-
Tertiary; when in a storm at sea he took
command Of the ship, the only one OIL
board cool headed. With his inspired
logic, and his courage of utterance, and
his power of illustration, and his capacity
to move audiences, and his spirit Of de-
|fiance, there was no height of worldly
power he might not have gained.
What Hannibal was to an army, what
lDraco was in making laws, what Homer
was to poetry, what Demosthenes was
in power of persuasion, what Socrates
was to philosophy, what Aschylus was
to the drama, that Paul might have been
to all centuries. God never before and
never since made another human being
like him. But with all his capacity and
opportunity of achieving worldly renown
he turns his back on home and becomes
an exile, ON bounteous tables and eats
his hard crust by the roadside, on the
pleasure yachts that sailed the Mediter-
ranean and embarked on a f%reighthoat
from Alexandria, OIL scholars in Ath,
ems and talks to fishermen. Instead OF
plaudits of aroused and enthusiastic as,
lsemblages he addressed audiences that
talked back and asked insolent questions
and broke up in a riot. Instead of gar
lands flung at his feet they hurled stones
upon his head. Five times he was scourg.
ed, at each whipping 80 strokes, the for
tieth stroke spared not from mercy, but
because 40 strokes were the severest pun.
ishment the law allowed, and they fear.
ed, through counting wrong, they might
make it Al and SO themselves be punish.
ed. Why, Paul must have been SCARED
all over, and he only tells the plain truth
without any commentary when he de.
%clares, 81 bear in my body the marks OF
the Lord Jesus" 1t was as much as to
say: "See those long scars? There is
where they whipped me. See you that
ugly indenture. There is where they
stoned me. See you that encircling scar
on my wrist? There is where they hand
cuffed me. See those ugly curves around
my ankles? There is where they made
my feet fast in the stocks"
Army of Christian Soldiers.
There are many who, like that apostolic
martyr, have on them the mark of the
Lord Jesus. There is the great army OF
foreign missionaries, sometimes maligned
by dissolute American, English and
Scotch merchants, who at Hongkong and
calcutta and C~onstantinople have had
their wickedness reproved by the pure
home life of those missionaries. There is
the great army of the ministers of the
gospel, now in heaven, who, on small sal
aries and amid fatigues that slew them,
served their day and generation. There
is another great army of private Chris,
Itians who in Sabbath schools and in
tract distribution and in humanitarian
and evangelistic efforts nave put their
life in sacrifice on the affairs of God.
There is another army of Christian nva
lids who lost their life in oyerwork fol
the church and the worlds redemption.
People call their illness neuralgia or nerv-
Ious prostration or insomnia or paresis
lor premature old age. l call their all,
ments scars, as my text calls them scars
There may be scars on the memory, scars
on the spirits, scars OF the courage, scars
on the soul, as well as scars on the body
and those invisible to the human eye arc
as honorable as those visible.
All We who bear in your body the marks
lcf the Lord Jesus, have you thought
what use those marks will be in the heav.
emily world? What source of glorious rem.
liniscence! In that world you will sit to.
lgether and talk over earthly experiences
"Where did you get that scarf" saint will
SAY to saint, and there will come back a
story Of hardship and struggle and perse.
cution and wounds and victory through
the grace Of the gospel. Another spirit
will say to listening spirit, where did
you get that hurt so plainly marked?'
And the answer will be: ooh, that was
limo NJ tho worrf hurfS I over had That