The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-06-11

germ of truth in 1t. Jesus Is king. His dominion Is widere than the most ambitious Caesar ever dreamed of.
 What was taunt to the Jews was a tribute to Jesus. Pilate would fain &C., knowledge Him a kingly spirit, of whom the Jews were not worthy. TO this covered eulogy of the procurator the dying thief added his Thy King dom."
 The cross Is always divisive. It once separated a believer from an unbeliev- ed It does so yet weherever 1t is preached. People range themselves in two classes. The cross Is the divis- or.
 A study of Cavalry reveals the in- tensive forcefulness of the expression. Cruelty the Son of God afresh." In- difference. unbelief. and apostasy are doing this daily.
 It is inconceivable that the spirit of Jesus. just mingled with common air. was dissipated and lost. as to its inden- tity, when he breathed 1t forth. He commended 1t as inconceivably precious thing to the care of a presonal God. the Father of Spirits.
 The Lord of life helped the dying penitent at His side to stand the shock of dissolution by the assurance of a perpetuation of conscious life beyond. and an immediate entrane to Para disc
 When Jesus entered Paradise is was in company with an executed criminal. This trophy of His redeeming love. this evidence of the poGer of His cross He presented to all the intelligence of the sky.
 It is a common error that the man who was impressed to bear the cross was Negro. The presence of Jew from Africa can easily be accounted for. Ptolemaeus Lagi forcedibly col onized Cyrene. Northern Africa, with great number of Jews, who built for themselves a synagogue in Jerusalem to which they might resort at feast times.
 The thoughts of Jesus. even in ais mortal agonies. were upon others, as His first words from the cross" indi- cate. Father forgive them;" and to the penitent thief, '9rhis day." and to His mother. Woman. behold thy Son."
 Gambling is that one iorrid vice that couid lntrude upon even the eruCffix. ion scene. The rattle of the dice-box was heard at the foot of the cross. It is the dehumanizing vice. At Monte Carlo today. the suicides revolver of- ten rings at the table. Inverted ser. wants throw a sheet over the corpse and carry it out. and the game goes on!
 cruclflixon was abolished by Con- stantine, out of sacred regard for the cross ss the instrument of the Saw ior's passion. Thus for fifteen cen- turies the world has been rid of this cruelest mode of capital punishment. And the spread of the humanizins gospel has reduced to the minimum the pains and indignities of those who must suffer the extreme penalty.
 The twenty-second Psalm written, as Hengstenberg affirms, in the great est heat of David's conflict with Saul, is also strikingly minute in i.s DOT trayal of the last agony of Jesus. The agonized cry. the derision, ..4e pierced hands and feet. the parting of garments. and many other circumstan- ces, are here. They are directly quo ted, or at least alluded to, in the New Testament. The psalm evidently has a broader application than ta the mere historic event of Davids being sur rounded by the soldiers of Saul at Maon. It is the most Messianic of all Messianic psalms.
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