The Newtown bee., 1908-03-20
The Newtown Bee.
 Newtown, Friday March 20 tels.
THE HOME CIRCLE.
WINTER.
SERMON BY REV ROBERT E. CAR
 TER, OF WASHINGTON.

outer world about Jesus, and m his
 heart within it was winter. It was the
 wintry season without: it was al the
 feast of dedication, the feast which celebrated the re-dedication of the
 temple after its defling by the Greek
 Kings some 200 years before: and that
 re-dedication was made in the month
 of December, so this feast of dedica-
 tion came at the heart of the winter
 of the year. Jesus walked on the sun
 ny side of the temple, under Solomon's
 porch, which was sheltered from the
 biting north west wind; for that with
 them as with us was about the coldest
 wind that blew. It was the winter
 season of the year.
 But it was also the winter of his life
 and ministry. 1 wonder if perhaps the
 writer did not slip in this short phrase,
 seemingly so unnecessary, because he
 felt that there was certain fitness in
 the season to the events in the life of
 Christ of which he had to write. The
 people had begun to turn from Jesus
 and follow Him: they began to criti-
 else harshly his teachings: many of
 them (the very verse before this tells us) began to whisper that He had a
 devil, his own people who had seen his
 works of mercy, and deeds of goodness,
 and heard his words of tenderness and
 truth said that he had a devil. As it
 was winter, winter indeed within.
 Even those who did not speak to him
 so harshly came to Him with nagging
 questions, tried Him as the next para
 graph tells us saying-tell us plainly
 whether thou art the Christ or no; how
 long doest thou hold US in suspense? Then when He told them they took up stones to stone Him. It must have been winter of cold and loneliness in the soul of Christ. It was fitting that the world about Him pictured the deso- lation of the heart within. If any man ever had reason to feel and say that the winter of his discontent, or disappoint- ment, or Encouragement had come, Christ might have spoken as thus He walked on Solomon's porch sheltered indeed from the wind, but all unshel- tered from the sneers and the hate and the hostility of those who should have been his followers and friends. Oh it | is cold season for the soul of a man when loneliness and spitefulness and neglect are the companions of his work or of his walk. Yea even his own disciples were hesitating, one of his household had lifted up his hand against hlm, or at least was just about to do so. Those who knew Him best and loved Him most. really loved Him, were wondering, questioning, falter- ing: they still clung to Him, and they would cling, some of them, to the end | but they had lost heart a good deal and faith little: they did not undertand and try as Jesus did He could not seem to teach them, that all this was neces. sary, this turning away of the people, this destroying of their ambitions and their ideals of the Messiah: not while He lived did they ever understand that these things also the Christ must do and suffer and come into His Kingdom. There was literally no one in all the world, not his mother or brethren, not his followers and disciples not the apostles, no one that received His word and understood. They came to do so later; they found the truth and gloried , in it by and by: they preached it to the ends of the world. But now it was winter: not one of them comprehended, sympathized. There was none that in and fellowship was brother unto his soul, no not one. It was winter also within.
 And how did Christ face the winter? How dld he pass through this way of whitening cold and desolation? How did He take this rejection by His own? The winter of unpopularity. of criti- cism, of the display of bad feelings makes many people so bitter and sad and morose that their whole nature is changed by it; they become silent and or they become hateful and Esau finds the hand of every man against him and he sets his hand against every man. Nero IS hated by all Rome, and wishes that all Rome had but single neck; then he could soon cut it off. Benedi,t Arnold thinks that he is unappreciated, that he is sighted and we write traitor as the sad result of it after what would have been otherwise most brave and honor able name. The winter of the soul has been the time of the souls darkening, and weakening, may be even of the souls destroying in many a human fife. And it was winter in the soul of | Jesus, how did he pass through 1t all?