Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1917 — WELCOME FOR ALL [ARTICLE]

WELCOME FOR ALL

What the Crdss Proclaims to All Who Will Heed the Message That It Conveys.

What does the cross stand for in our thinking? First of all it stands for the utmost effort on the part of God to bridge a chasm between himself and errant man. What mote could the prodigal’s father have dotle than he did when he ran to meet the ragged, footsore wanderer, before he reached the gate of home. The cross Is where God meets the penitent long before he reaches home. The attitude of God toward the sinner, the temper of God toward the man who has fallen and failed, is revealed in the cross as nowhere else. That there is welcome for the sinner, and that the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind, the cross proclaims as nothing else. There Is the story of the king many of whose subjects rebelled against him. He might have crushed them, but he was a magnanimous monarch, who preferred to win them. So he appointed an envoy to confer with them, offering amnesty to such as conformed to reasonable requirements, and appointed a day and a place for them to come to him, relate the story of their wrongs* as they conceived them, promising that if their complaints were well founded their wrongs should be redressed. The meeting place was at a distance from the king’s palace and under the spreading broadcast of an ancient oak. The rebels came and were received by the king himself. They stated their grievances, which the king himself guaranteed should he redressed; and each rebel, putting his hands between the king’s hands, swore to be his faithful man thereafter.

The Cross for Mankind. “The parallel is not no complaints against God. He has not wronged us nor oppressed us. Yet we are rebels, and he invites us to return and be reconciled to him. Now what is the cross? The cross is the spreading tree under which the king of heaven meets his rebel subjects and receives them with open arms and pitying heart There once came to me a yonng mau who had run away from home. He was too proud to ask to be taken back. His father was too proud to ask him to come back. The boy said, “I would be glad to go back if only the way were open.” Well, the way was opened presently to personal intercession, and the runaway boy w’as restored to his father’s arms and his mother’s heart Does anyone of us say, “I would be glad to go back home to God, if only the way were open?” _ The cross is the way home! . - Lives Again in His Followers. Jesus laid down his life at the cross, but he finds his life again in the lives of all who follow him. Whatever we sacrifice when we enter his discipleship, we find again on earth and in heaven. There came into a country district not long ago a demonstrator of a remarkable machine. In the martet place of a village where the country people gathered on a holiday, he set up his machine and asked for common metal objects, articles of iron or brass, or even tin. He took them and Immersed them in the silver bath and presently restored them to their own-' ers transfigured at least exteriorly, changed as to their nature. At the cross of Christ by faith we who yield our lives as common Instruments of Christian service discover a similar metamorphosis, yet not confined to the surface., for IL penetrates throughout. We give him clay and get back iron. We give him iron and get back brass. We give him brass and get back silver. We give him silver, and -gald- ls our reward. Gold, we offef, and lo! eternal life is burs. —Rev. Charles C. Albertson, D. D.