Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1902-06-14


Harvard classmates Taylor went to a
Boston meeting with the avowcd in
tention Of interrupting Mr. Webster's
speech and turning his remarks into
ridicule. 'When Mr.. Webster arose to
speak" wrote Bayard Taylor, "he
turned his great eyes upon us students.
AS he did so he seemed to us to read
our very thoughts. The intelligence Of
his face seemed to speak volumes, al
though his lips had not yet parted. We
college boys came to scott We dared
not move. so subdued were we at the
sight of that great lawyers face"
Go with me where you will-nto the
studies of the great masters of the law,
Of literature music, sculpture or the
sciences-and almost without eXcep-
ton the intelligence Of these mental
giants has been made manifest in their
faces. A Hugo. Tennyson, Dante,
a Milton, Luther, Calyin-all prove
4 by their physiognOmy that this state
nient is true. SO Christ must have had
an intelligent face 1t was not as some
hA AioAo hdNt l'llDlth H. llC luNt VI an
impractical dreamer or of fanatic
or Of an elfeminate nonentity. His was
the face of one who had a masterful
mind. When we begin to study Christ's
face, we are impressed with the con-
viction that his eye was an omnscient
eye, that the brain back Of that face
was an omnipOtent brain, that the ear
was an all hearing ear. That face re-
vealed the fact that Christ knew all
from eternity past to eternity to come.
| But what is more important to us per-
sonally when we look upon Christs
face is that we intutively feel Christ
knows every thought and hope and
deed of our lives. He knows what we
have done and what we would have
liked to do
As a little child. when would be
sent to bed for having done wrong, l
could see in the darkness Of the bed
room the face OF Christ lowering over
and watching me. used to bury my
head in the pillow and cover myself up
completely with the bedclOthes, yet |
could not blot out that Christ face.
a sympathetic Fnce.
Jesus Christ's face was also a sym
pathetic and forgiving face. How many
men we have seen whose faces repre-
sented intelligent power. but without
mercy-faces such as you could easily
imagine a Robespierre might have had
or a Frankenstein or any of the great
| leaders of the inquisitionl Those were
the faces of men like Napoleon, who,
hearing a marshal Of France after a
bloody battle express regret over the
awful slaughter Of human life, replied:
"Oh, that is nothing. In order to make
an omelet you must break few
eggs" Those were the faces of men
like Prince Nawab, who drove 146
British prisoners into the Black Hole
of Calcutta, sitting room only eight
cen feet square, and left them there un-
til the misery of all but twenty-three
was ended by suffocation. Those were
the kind of faces that must have been
possessed by men like Mana Sahib, the /
fend of Cawnpur, and women like
Catherine de- Medici, the evil spirit Of
ST. Bartholomew massacre, when 3d.
600 French HuguenOts were slain in
one day, and by Deliliah, the betray-
er Of a Samson, and Jezebel, the de-
strOyer Of a Naboth.
But all strong faces are not evil |
faces. Some of the strongest faces we |
have ever seen have been the sweetest |
and most magnanimOus. These faces |
had a love attracting power for the be-
holders, like the face Of old Dr. Plum |
er, one of the strongest men the Amer |
lean pulpit ever produced. DR.. Plum |
er's face was n sweet and tenCer and |
loving face, although one Of the stron-
gest Of faces One day, as he was
walking across a Pittsburg park, lit
tie child ran up to him and took his
hand; then, looking up into that great
good face-a face that never had any |
bitterness against any one, but only |
forgiveness-the child asked. 81 say,
mister, are you GOd|'
So we must not think Of Christ's face
only as an intelligent face a face Of
power, but also as loving, sympa-
thetic, forgiving face. We must think
of him as having the same kind Of
face your earthly father may have
had. You remember when, in the past,
you did what your father had for
hidden, you came to his side and
buried your face in his lap and cried,
Father, will you forgive meY Then
you remember how he took you up In
his great, strong arms. What a sweet
look came into his loving face! How
his lip trembled and his eyes filled
with tears as he said: "My boy, my !
dear little son, was in hopes that you
would come to me as you have done.
My heart was almost breaking, my
child, because you did wrong. But it
was breaking the more because my
little son did not come to his father
and ask to be forgiven" And then
you found that the tears which tric-
kled down your cheek were not those
which came from your eyes alone.
Mingled with them were the tears
which flowed from your earthly par
ents eyes. Yes, our Christ's face, al
though a strong face, was a sympa-
thetic face.
Forgiveness In Christ's Face.
And my Christ's face must have been
forgiving face because it was such
an intelligent face. He knows all that
we have done and suffered. He also
well knows how hard some of US have
struggled in our own strength to do
right. He knows how we have grap-
pied each Of US with his own besetting
sin, which we dare not tell to any hui
man ear. He knOws-yes, he knows
how impossible it is for US to succeed
in battling that sin in our own
strength. SO when we come to Christ
to ask for help to resist the evil pres
ent and to avert the evil future as well
as to wipe out the evil past, oh, then
the strong face Of Christ becomes
tender Svmpathetic. fOrgiYing face |