Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-04-01

/ of alabaster that broke at his feet? Is
this Jesus the comforter Of Bethany,
the resurrector at Main, the Oculist at
! Bethsaida? Is this the Chcist whose
/ frown is the storm, whose Smile is the
! sunlight, the spring morning his breath,
! the thunder his voice, the ocean a drop
on the tip of his finger, heaven a spar
| kle ON the bosom of his love, the uni
verse the dust of his chariot wheel?
Is this the Christ who is able to heal a
| heartbreak or hush tempest or
! drown q world, or flood immensely with
| his glory? Behold him in prayer, the
| globules Of blood by sorrow pressed
through the skin of his forehead! What
an instaliment in part payment of the
greatest price that was ever paid!
The fourth installment paid for our
redemption was the SaviOur's sham
trial. [ call it a sham trial-there has
never been anything so indecent or I'M
fair in any criminal court as was wit
messed at the trial of Christ. Why,
they hustled him into the courtroom at
2 o'clock in the morning. They gave
him no time for counsel. They gave
him no opportunity for subpnnaing
witnesses. The ruffians who were wan
dering around through the midnight,
of course they saw the arrest and went
into the courtroom. But Jesus friends
were sober men, were respectable men,
and at that hour o'clock in the morn
ing, Of course they were at home
asleep. Consequently Christ entered
the courtroom with the ruffians.
Worlds Best Friend.
Oh, look at him! No one to speak a
word for him. I lift the lantern until
I can look into his face, and as my
heart beats in sympathy for this, the
best friend the world ever had, himself
now utterly friendless, an officer of the
courtroom comes up and smites him
in the mouth, and see the blood steal
ing from gum and lip. Oh, it was a
farce of a trial, lasting only perhaps
an hour and then the judge rises for
sentence. Stop! 1t is against the law
to give sentence unless. there has been
an adjournment Of the court between
condemnation and sentence. But what
cares the judge for the law? ''The man
has no friends. Let him die" says the
judge. And the ruffians outside the
rail cry: "Aha, aha! That's what we
want! Pass him out here to us! Away
with him! Away with him!'
Oh, bless God that amid all the in
justice that may have been inflicted
upon us in this world we have divine
sympathizer! The world cannot lie
about you nor abuse you as much as
they did Christ, and Jesus stands today
in every courtroom, in every house, in
every store, and says: Courage! By
all my hours of maltreatment and
abuse l will protect those who are
trampIed upon" And when Christ for
gets that o'clock morning scene, and
the stroke of the ruffian on the mouth,
and the bowling of the unWashed
crowd, then he will forget you and me
in the injustices of life that may be in
fiicted upon US.
Further | remark the last great in
stallment paid for our redemption was
the demise of Christ. The world has
seen many dark days. Many summers
ago there was a very dark day when
the sun was eclipsed. The fowl at
monday went to their perch, and we
felt a gloom as we looked at the as
Economical wonder. 1t was a dark day
in London when the plague was at it's
height and the dead with uncovered
faces were taken in open carts and
dumped in the trenches. 1t was dark
day when the earth opened and Lisbon
sank, but the darkest day since the
creation of the world was when the
carnage of Calvary was enacted.
On Ca1vary's Cross.
1t was about noon when the curtain
began to be drawn. 1t was not the
coming on of a night that soothes and
refreshes; it was the swinging of a
great gloom all around the heavens.
God hung it. AS when there is a dead
one in the house you bow the shutters
or turn the lattice, so God in the after
noon shut the windows of the world.
AS it is appropriate to throw black
pail upon the coffin as it passes along,
so it was appropriate that everything
should be somber that day as the great
hearse of the earth rolled on bearing
the corpse Of the king. A mans last
hours are ordinarily kept sacred. How
ever you may have hated or carica-
tured a man, when you hear he is dy-
ing silence puts it's hand on your lips,
and you would have loathing for the
man who could stand by a deathbed
making faces and scoffing. But Christ
in his last hour cannot be left alone.
What! Pursuing him yet after so long
a pursuit? You have been drinking
his tears. Do you want to drink his
blood? They come up closely, so that
Notwithstanding the darkness they can
glut their revenge with the cOntOrtionS
of his countenance. They examine his
feet; they want to feel for themselves
whether those feet are really spiked;
they put out their hands and touch the
spikes and bring them back wet with
blood and wipe them on their gar
moDtC