The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1902-05-23

twofold significance of the cross.
First, it signifies the moral and spirit
ual disorder existing in the world.
The linaaments of the worlds wrong
are outlined in the tragedy upon Cal
vary. The cross is the instrument Of
| torture. If it has come to have other
significance in the world of poetry and
art, it is only because of its one illus
stand simply for crude theories of
penology, and for capital punishment,
it stands for hatred and vengeance.
And how large the fact Of human
hatred is written in the history Of the
world. At the close of a servile war
in Italy. men whose crime was that
they made a bold stroke for liberty,
were cruci6ed by thousands along the
highways. The Romans in their last
siege of Jerusalem crucifed captive
Jews until they could find no more
wood for crosses. 1t makes ones blood
run cold to read the story of ancient
wars; and even medieval methods of
trial and punishment, with the wrack
and thumbscrew and wheel, and the
religious wars that in Christendom
have stained the pages of history show
to what extent human anger and
vengence have expoited themselves in
human life
But not all the cruel and unjust
suffering of the world are due to hu-
man hatred. They are, however,
largely due to the selfshness which
in the pursuit of its object disregards
the rights and interests of others. The
Buddhist priest who nailed a child to
the temple threshold with spike
through his mouth from cheek to
cheek, did not hate the child, but he
wanted money for the temple treasury
and took this method of extorting it
from a compassio public, continu-
ing the torture of the child until the
treasury was full. The man who en-
tees boys into his saloon and ruins
them, the man who sells LIQUOR to
drunkards and so binds innocent chill
| dren and wives to the desolation and
| shame of a drunkard's home, does it
not because he hates women and chill
dren, but because he wants money.
In the competitions of the business
world thousands are brushed heartlessly
to the wall who might have been
| spared their distress If their more
powerful competitors had tempered
| their selfish greed by considerations of
mercy and brotherhood.
But the cross which suggests to us
the selfshness and hatred which have
filed our world with woe, stands also
for that divine love which in Jesu
Christ, has stopped down to save GU
world. 1t notifies the world that it j
not the purpose of God to annihiIat
a sinful race but to save it. "God
loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life'' The cross means
that God has actually undertaken the
work of saving the world from it's
sin and woe. In the person of his Son
he has come to put his mighty arm
beneath men, to gather an estranged
world to his bosom, that men may feel
the heart beat of his infinite love.
He comes to utter his infinite father
hood infinitely afflicted by the trans
gressions of his children.
In the cross of Jesus, then, we see
the love that in it's beauty and divin-
ity stands over against our selfshness
and hatred to conquer the world. And if
we are Christians indeed, this divine
spirit must be in us. If any man
have not the spirit of Christ, he is
none of his This divine love which
manifested itself in Jesus Christ is to
live on and love onand do its gracious
work through Christ's people. God
who was incarnate in the Christ still
seeks to be incarnated in his people.
Through the divine love and power
which Jesus manifested on earth, he
has become the center of the world 8
moral and spiritual gravitation. The
progress of Christianity through the
world and the ages gives promise that
his wo-ds will yet be fulfilled: "And
I, if be lifted up from earth. will
draw all men unto me. !" If we have
that faith in God and love for men
which characterized our divine Mas
ter, our own lives will help to realize
the grand consummation in which
all men shall worship God and shall
become divine family upon the
earth.