The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-03-29

and His sweat Was as it were, grea drops of blood falling down to tn ground" What if we should shar'
 Gethsemanes agony and earnestnesi
 with Him, To-day He is crucitied
 What if we should continue His cruel
 tiXion to-day,Oh! my friends, what if
 instead of going home from here to sel
 fishness and ease and pleasure wt
 should continue His crucifxion by self
 sacrifice and go and sit down beside
 some sinful and sorrow burdened life
 and by oul-earnestness and love con
 tinue the crucifixion until that life
 would believe that Christ was really ir
 the world in His disciples who are suf-
 fering for His sake? Do you say
 should rather give money to have some
 one else do 1t? That is the trouble The cross cannot be endowed. This is
 the time for giving the thing that costs
 the most, and that is life, and heart.
 ache, and personal sacrifice. Jesus did not ask some one else to save the WO-
 man at the we'll or Zacchaes or the
 publicans and harlots of His time, but
 did if Himself
 The church that has no travail of sou | VIII AAeNNC liO Splilhuell Nillbiti Dci II "
 her. On the other hand, the church
 that cares and continues the crucfixlon
 of Christ and is willing to endure2 the
 labor pains of love will rejoice in the
 birth of spiritual children. The harvest
 in the spiritual world is as sure as in i the natural world.
 | The antidote to sin is service or love, l The antidote to sefshness is crucifiX- 1 ion.
 Paul says that I may know Him and
 the power of His resurrection and the
 fellowship of His sufferings. being made conformable unto His death' This same injunction to continual crucifixion is made to the nation as to the individual or the church. The wages of selfishness is death to a na tion as to an individual. The way to national immortality is the way of na
 tional crucifxion. The nation that can learn to bear the cross among the na- tions will live when more selfish nations shall have been gathered to the cemetery of the nations
 From years ago our great nation seemed to rise to manifest national al- truism ] believed our nation was right four years ago when she said that she would free fallen Cuba whatever the cost in men and money. I believe that this nation could not have been thrust into that struggle with Spain with the avowed purpose of national selfishness. They told us it was according to the law of service that we were going-not to be ministered unto, but to minister and thus give our lives to help bear away in some measure the sin of the nations The great bulk of the nation believed in the sincerity of the nations motto, For humanity's sake and the blessings of the best men of the country were with our army and navy in the struggle to free Cuba from the hand of the oppressor.
 Let us think, too, how the country was finally moved to take up arms against a sister nation
 It was not when they told us that Cuba would be valuable possession to our country that we went into the war for national aggrandizement and na- iional expansion. It was not when the Maine was destroyed in Havana harbor that we took up weapons of war for na- tional revenge.
 Not until that calm judicial Senator Proctor from Vermont had made at the presidents command, deliberate visit to the devastated island and returned and told the tragic story did we decide that in honor we could not refuse When he stood up in the midst Of the nation and told the sad story of his
  who were bearing burdens too grievous to be borne. and of holloW-eyed, starved children who had forgotten to laugh and play, and of sad-eyed, brokep- hearted Cuban maidens robbed of that which is dearer than life itself by a brutal Spanish soldiery it was then that this great nation bowed her head in moment of solemn silence and | wept and arose as one man to unsheath | the sword that was not to be sheathed | again'until Cuba should be free.
 And what an awful cost of crucifix- | ion!
 Two years ago last month | visited | Cuba. Believing that our nation went l to war not for national selfishness, but for national sacrifice and knowing | Of the aw:ul sacrifice that some families of my own congregation made, I was proud to see the Stars and . Stripes everywhere in the island.
 As Old Glory waved from the para pets of Morro Castle and Cabanas For Lress she seemed not ashamed to be there, and she seemed to have a right to be there, for no screams of Cuban pierced her folds as they paid 1n the dead lines, the price of their lives Tor the awful crime of believing that Cuba should be free. She seemed not lfraid of freedom and was unfurled to he breezes of the southern sea only to say to the ships of the nations as they uttered Havana harbor, Cuba must be rec"
 But Cuba is not free! l believe that he nation was right when she freed Cuba from a military bondage l be- ieve that the nation is wrong when he binds on the weak neck of Cuba the yalling yoke of a commercial bondage. Dur nation was right when she saved he Cuban patriots and people from the swift starvation of the concentration amps of a cruel Weyler Our nation S eternally wrong when she submits he Cuban people to the more slow and more cruel starvation trough commercial greed. It was diff icult at the beginning for the nations