Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1905-07-25
FAIR
The High Water Mark Of Suffering.

Suffering is The common lot II
cannot be Winked out of sight 1t
cOines 10 all men through their whole
nature Ii cannot be put into sub
ordinate place in the picture of hui
man life. II is the chief burden OF
history 1t is the theme OF the dra-
natisb the poet. the artist, the his
torian, the novelist, the musician, the
preacher.
A large part Of human vacations
are intended TO shut up some of the
avenues of pain and sorrow. 1t has
ploughed its burrows on every human
countenance. 1t has frosted the head,
and bent the back, and knotted the
muscles, and dimmed the eyes, and
weakened the limbs, and clouded the
memory, and palsied the wills of mil
lions of eartb's inhabitants. 1t is
to the vast majority the most vivid
recollection of life.
In the book of psalms, out of the
100 separate Psalms, at least 80 have
more or less allusion to suffering.
There is no saint in the Bible of
whose history we have any heightened
account who was not called to endure
trouble in some form, and very fire.
quently the most eminent saints
seemed to have the hardest time.
Sometimes their sufferings were their
own fault, sometimes the fault of 9TH
ers, sometimes the fault is very diff
cult to place. When we attempt to
account for and explain suffering we
find ourselves in an ocean of mystery.
But we are taught in this lesson
that even Jesus Christ, the Son OF
God, was a sufferer And here the
mystery deepens, for he was not only
a sufferer, He was beyond all others
and above all others the sufferer.
He suffered as no being ever suffered
before or since. This incontestable
fact has stirred the human mind with
incessant activity and opened Him
liable ranges of thought. And 1t is
still being discussed. Why must he
suffer? What was the nature of the
suffering? Is it possible for the divine
to suffer? Was it not merely human
nature that suffered? Were the suf-
ferings of Christ a literal assump-
ton of anticipated human suffering?
Did his sufferings solve any difficult
ties of divine administration? Such
questions as these have been argued
for generations, argued diversely ar
gued combatively, argued dirisiyely,
argued endlessly, and the world is no
nearer agreement in regard to them
than it was the first day.
Do not waste time in idle specu-
lation. One thing is certain, and
upon one point all agree-Christ was
a sufferer. Seven hundred years be-
fore he was born, Isaiah the prophet
described the life and character and
especially the sorrows of the Lamb
of God in the most graphic language.
Il is a prophesy, which in its life
like accuracy reads as If it had been
written by one who had witnessed
the Crucifixion itself
But who can tell the story of the
sufferings of Christ? They were
physical, mental and substitutionary
They covered the widest possible
range. He endured the keenest phys
ical pain. Hunger, thirst, poverty,
he knew. Bruised, wounded, marred
he was. He groaned under the ag-
onies of a tortured body. He bore the
acutest mental agony. He underwent
the quivering of natural feeling. in
dread of coming torture. He sweat
as it were great drops of blood and
cried. IF it be possible let this cup
pass from mel" He sympathized in
tensely with the sufferings of others.
Himself took our infirmities and
bore our sicknesses." He heard the
cry arising from his heart, My soul
is exceeding sorrowful even unto
death"
The tradition is that when Christ
was on earth his hair was of an aub-
urn hue, but John got a glimpse OF
him in glory and he says that his hair
is white. "His head and his hairs
were whitened like wool, as white
as snow" Perhaps it was sorrow that
whitened his hair 1t is said of Marie
Antoinette that when she was arrest
ed. imprisoned her husband executed,
her children torn from her embrace,
the knife of the guillotine sharpening
for her neck-in one night her beautl-
full hair turned white.
Perhaps It was that way with Jesus.
If there ever was a time when the
waves of sorrow submerged him 1t
was that midday-midnight on Jhat
First Good Friday afternoon outside
the city gates on the hill of Calvary.
That was the elimination of anguish,
that was the high-water mark of sac
rifice. That was the focus TO which
the woes of all the ages had con-
yerged. How the spikes hurt! How
the temples throbbed! How deathly
sickness seized his heart! How
mountain. and city. and mob swan
away from his dying vision! How
everything but fiends, execuuoners.
and robbers forsook him! How 1t
seemed to him that even God had
turned his back upon him. How dark
ness that could be felt shut down
about him! The King is dying! Toll
the bells of the universal The King
is dead! Shroud earth and heaven in
black
The sun smote him, the cold chilled
him. the rain pelted him, thirst
parched him, hunger exhausted him.
Truly Isaiah got it right when he
said. "He was despised and rejectes
of men. a man of sorrows and &C
ouainted with grief" And If that is
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