The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-03-07

 1908, Jehn vs, z7-51.
 Jesun the Bread of Life. A number of the most enthusiastic of the niracuiously fed multitude bi- vouacked on the scene. hoping to find | the Wonder worker there when day should break. Disappointed in this, they took boats across the lake. re- versinr the order of the day before. and expecting to cutstrip Jesus if He | had gone around the head of Galilee afoot. What was their amusement to | And He had already been some time in TCapernaum. They suspected supernat- urai means. and hint 1t in their ques- ton. Jesus does not. however. satisfy their curiosity. That walking on the sea was one of the few esoterie miracles designed to comfort the apostles on whom a fercer storm would soon beat In the l Masters absence. I Jesus dug the grave of His popularity that day. These ardent Chiliasts had ! the purple in hiding for his shoulders. | To their fond eyes the long-expected star had risen out of Jacob. and mighty scepter had been lifted in Is- rael that should break in pieces the dynasty of the Idumean usurper. word, a look. beck, and the Nazarene would have been declared king. The choice for Jesus was between a diadem
 and a crown of thorns.
 | Tn single word Jesus revealed the essentially wrong basis of this enthusi- asm. It was utterly sordid and mate | rialistic: sensual illusion, and dan gerous in the extreme; diametricaily opposed to the spirit of the Kingdom He had come to set up. He had not come to gratify their political ambi- | tfons to distribute offices and emolu- ments among them. or feed them at the | inexhaustible crib of Golden Solo,
 monic empire.
 | He disclosed the other-worldliness of | His Kingdom; pictured Himself as the Almoner of that substance upon which an immortal life could maintain itself. Id steward wearing openly the easily | tlegible seal of His supernatural office. IThe sum and substance of it all was | that they should see and receive Him | in His spiritual function to their souls. | See the inveterate obtruseness of the average mind. Jesus had poured mir acles like e cascade of pearls from the golden urn of Ills oninipotence; yet, as ] if the past }twenty-four months had been blank. with unparalleled obli- quity they ask now for 8 sign. They tacitIy admit that He had fed them on l the day before. But they minify the i feast by comparison. He had given them one meal. and that. too. only of barley bread. whereas Noses had fed their fathers forty years on mama. l Jesus avails Himself of their unnan- 1 nerly allusion to outline the holy mys- l tery of Ills suffering. True enough, I your fathers had mama to eat; but in spite of that, they all died. There l is Bread whereof. if a man eat 1t win l nourish him to immortal life. I am that Bread--the Fathers gift to fam ished world; yet. like the loaf. I, too. must be broken In the suffering of My cross before men can take Me Into l themselves, through faith and with l thanksgiving, as thoroughly as the eat I CT does the bread he consumes"
 The flood-tide suddenly ebbed, and Jesus, with the Twelve. was left strand ed upon the shore. The sensually cu- rious. the iusters after marvels and ioaves and fishes. the irst-century Fen- Ians, who hoped to use the Nazarene for the overthrow of Herod and Rome all found nothing in Him to suit their purpose, and were offended at His. to l them, hard and dark sayings--now be- came His open and fmplacabls foes. | There was a great withdrawal. too. of those who, under the spell of false inl- pressiors, had joined themselves to the new Rabbi That davis sermon had broken the charm. and the secession was immediate and immense.
 The shadow of the cross was more plainly than ever outlined on Jesus l pathway that day. He spoke then, for the first time. of the traitor, and the loneliness of His heart finds vent in 1 His pathetic will ye also go away2" | The Teachers Lantern.
 | Jesus selects the common. indispensa- ble things as emblems of His function | to the human souI-light, water, bread. l Jesus is not merely very desirable. He is an ab solute necessity. Without Him | we not merely suffer loss we are our selves lost. As we'll expect physical | life without light. water, and bread, as
 soul-life without Him who says; T l am the Light" Come unto Me and l drink" 'I am the Bread"
 | All that Jesus would demand IS that I the proportion be maintained between l the material and spiritual; that the strength of our exertion bear some ratio to the worth of the thing sought 1 In comparison with the intensity with 1 which we toll for the meat that en-
 dureth, we should appear not to labor
 at all for that which perisheth.
 There must be a personal acceptance. an individual appropriation of Jesus. 1 As we'll expect to have hunger appeased | by looking at a loaf of bread, or thirst slackened by gazing at glass of wa 1 ter, as to be nourished In our souls
 without taking Christ into them. We | | +
 Moses was the human instrument. Moses did not give the bread of the wilderness. God gave both 1t and the living Bread. The latter is vastly Bu. | perior. Those who ate mama were q small company comparatively; they ate
 1t only forty years. and then. in spite l of all, died. But here is Bread of
 which the thousand millions of earth's caravan can eat for forty centuries;
 and not one of them dies. but all live | forever.
 Lord, ever more give us this Bread"
 is a beautiful petition; but on the lips of those who first uttered it was a
 mere shallow sentiment. They were not in such dead earnest as to meet the arduous conditions of receiving 1t.
 They were not prepared to labor for the
 meat which abideth unto everlasting life.
 "This is the work; namely, that we
 believer the unitiYe nature of faith and works is here categorically af- | frmed. They are as .inseparable as light and heat in the gas-jet. You can not turn off one without the other. = -