Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1888 — SOUR EXPERIENCES. [ARTICLE]

SOUR EXPERIENCES.

tHE INFLUENCE OF SOURNESS ON THE AFFAIRSOFaLIFE. Betrayal aad Pal*. Sadnean, Poverty and Ber*avem«n>—Tlion Cotae* lb* lionr of DUiolution, With AH lt« Solemnity. Rev. Dr. TalniAge, of Brooklyn,preached Sunday to an enormous auditory. His subject was “Sour Experience,” and his text: “When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar.”—John xix., 30. The sermon *-as as follows: The brigands of Jerusalem had done their work. It was -aimost sundown, and Jesus was dying. Persons in crucifixion often lingered on from day to day, crying, begging, cursing; but Christ had lieen exhausted by years of maltreatment. Pillowless, poorly fed, dogged—as, bent over tied to a low post, His bare back was inflamed with the scourges interstioed nieces of lead and bone, and now for whole hours the weight of His body hung on delicate tendons, and, according to custom, a violent stroke under the arm-pits had been given by the executioner. Dizzy, swopning, nauseated, feverish—a world of agony is compressed ip the two words, “i thirst!” O, skies of Judea, let a drop of rain strike on His burning tongue. 0, world, witldrolling rivers, and sparkling Jakes, and spraying fountains, give Jesus something to drink. If there be any pity in earth, or heaven, or hell, let it now be demonstrated in behalf of this Royal sufferer. The wealthy women of Jerusalem used to have a fund of money with which they provided money Tor those people who died in crucifixion —a powerful opiate to deaden the pain; but Christ would not take it. He wanted to die sober, and so He refused the wine. But afterward they go to a cup of vinegar and soak a sponge in it, and put it on a stick of hyssop, and then press it against the hot lips oi Christ. You say the wine was an ana?sthetic, and intended to relieve or deaden the pain. But the vinegar was an insult. I am disposed to adopt the theory of the old English who believed that instead of its being an opiate to soothe it was vinegar to insult. Malaga and Burgundy for Grand Dukes and Duchesses, and costly wines from Royal vats for bloated imperials; but stinging acids for a dying Christ. He took the vinegar.

In some lives the saccharine seems to predominate. Life is sunshine on a bank of flowers. A thousand hands to clap approval. In December or January, looking across their table, they see all their family present; health rubicund, skies flamboyant, days resilient. But in a great many cases' there are not so many sugars as acids. The annoyances, and the vexations, and the disappointments of life overpower the successes. There isagravelin almost every shoe. An Arabian legend says that there was a worm in Solomon’s staff, gnawing its strength away; and their is a weak spot in every earthly support that a man leans on. King George of England forgot all the grandeurs of his throne because one day, in an interview, Beau Brummel called him by his first name, and addressed him as a servant, saying: “George, ring the bell!” Miss Langdon, honored all the world over for her poetic genius, is so worried over the evil re{*orts set afloat regarding her that she is ound dead, with an empty bottle of prussic acid in her hand.' Goldsmith said that this life was a wretched being, and that all that want and contempt could bring to it had been brought, and cries out: “What, then, is there fomidahle in a Jail?” Corregio’s fine* painting is hung up for a tavern sign. Hogarth cannot sell his best paintings expept through a raffle. Andrew Delsart makes the great fresco in the Church of the Annuneiata, at Florence, and gets for pay a sack of corn; and there are annoyances and vexations in high places as well as in low places—showing that in a great many lives the sours are greater than the sweets.

“When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar.” It is absurd to suppose that a man who has always been well can sympathize with those who are sick; or that one who has always been honored can appreciate the sorrow of those who are despised; or that one who has been born to a great fortune can understand the flistress and the straits of those who are destitute. The fact that Christ himself took the vinegar makes Him able to sympathize to-day and forever with all those whose cup is filled with sharp acids of this life. He took the vinegar! In the first place, there is the sourness of betrayal. The treachery’ of Judas hurt Christ’s feelings more "than all the friendship of His disciples did Him good. You have had many friends; but there was one friend upon .whom you put especial stress. You feasted him. You loaned him money. You befriended him in the dark passes of life when he especially need a friend. Afterward, he turned upon you. and he took advantage of vour former intimacies. He wrote against you. He talked against you. He microscopized vour faults. He flung contempt at you when you ought to have received nothing but" gratitude. At first you could not sleep at night. Then you went about with a sense of having leen stung. That difficulty will never be healed, for though mutual friends mav arbitrate in the matter until you shaxe hands the old cordiality will .never come back. Now, I commend to all such the sympathy of a betrayed Christ.' Why, they sold him for less than our S2O! They all forsook Him and fled. They cut Him to the quick. He drank that cup of betrayal'to the dregs. He took the vinegar, % There is also a sourness of pain. There are some of you who have not seen a well day for many years. Bv keeping out of draughts and by carefully studying dietetics, you continue to this time; but, O, the headaches, and heartaches that have been your accompaniament all the way through! You have struggled under a heavy mortgage of phvsical disabilities; and instead of the placidity that once characterized you, it is nowonly with great effort that you keep away fronf irritability and sharp retort. Difficulties of respiration, of digestion, of locomotion, makeup the great obstacle in your life, and you tug and sweat along the pathway,‘and wonder when the exhaustion will end. My friends, the brightest crowns in heaven will not be given to those who, in stirrups, dashed to the cavalry- charge, while the general applauded, and the sound of clashing sabers rang through the land; but the brightest crowns in heaven, I believe, will be given to those who trudge ed amid chronic ailments which unnerved their strength, yet all the time main-

taining their faith in God. It ,is comparativelf'easy to fight in a regiment of a thousand men, charging up the parapets to the sound of martial music; but it is not so easy to endure when no one but the nurse and the doctor are the witnesses of the Christian fortitude. Besides that Vou never had any pains worse than Christ’s. The sharpness that stuna through His brain, through His hancui, through His feet, through His heart, were as great as yonrs certainly. He was as sick and as weary. Not a nerve, or muscle, or ligament escaped. AH the pangs of all the nations, of all the ages compressed into one sour cup. He took the vinegar! There is also the sourness of poverty. Your income does not meet your outgoings, (Mid that always gives an honest man anxiety. There is no sign of destitution about you—pleasant appearance, and a cheerful home for you; but God only knows what a time vou have had to manage your private finances. Just as the bills run up, the wages seem to run down. But you are not the only one who has not been paid for hard work. The great Wilkie sold his celebrated piece, “The Blind Fiddler,” for fifty guineas, although afterward it brought its thousands. The world hangs in admiration over the sketch of Gainsborough, yet that very sketch hung for years in tne shop window liecause there was not any purchaser. Oliver Goldsmith sold his “Vicar of Wakefield” for a few pounds in order to keep the bailiff out of the door; and the vast majority of men in all occupations and professions are not fully paid for their work. You may say nothing, but life to you is a hard push; and when you sit down witlryour wife and talk over the expenses, you both rise up discouraged. Vou abridge here, and you abridge there, and you get things snug for smooth sailings, and lo! suddenly there is a large doctor’s bill to pay, or you have lost your pocketbook, or some creditor has failed, and you are thrown abeam end. Well,brother, you are in glorious company. Christ owned not the house in which He stopped, or the colt on which He rode, or the boat in which He sailed. He lived in a borrowed house; He was buried in a borrowed grave. Exposed to all kinds of weather, yet He had only one suit of clothes. He breakfasted in the morning and no one could possibly toll where He could get any thing to eat before night. He would have been pronounced a financial failure. He had to perform a miracle to get money to pay a tax-bill. Not a dollar did He own. Privation of domesticity; privation of nutritious food; privation of a comfortable couch on which to sleep; privation of all worldly resources. The kings of the earth had chased chalices out of which to “drink; but Christ had nothing but a plain cup set before Him, and it was very sharp, and it was very sour. He took the vinegar.

There also is the sourness of bereavement. There were years that passed along before your family circle was invaded by death; but the moment the charmed circle was broken every thing seemed to dissolve. Hardly have you put the black apparel in the wardrobe before you have again to take it out. Great and rapid changes in your family record. You got the house and rejoiced in it, but the charm was gone as soon as the crape hung on the door-bell. The one upon whom you most depended was taken aw-av irom you. A cold marble slab lies on your heart to-day. Once, as the children romped through the house, vou put your hand over your aching head, and said: “Oh,if I could only have it still!” Oh! it is too still now. You lost your patience when the tops, and the strings, and the shells were left amidfloor; but, oh! you would be willing to have the trinkets scattered by the same hands. With what a ruthless plowshare bereavement rips up the heart! But Jesus knows all about that. You can not tell Him any thing new in regard to bereavement, He had only a few friends, and when He lost one it brought tears to His eyes. Then there is the sourness of the death-hour. Whatever else we may escape, that acid sponge will be pressed to our lips. I sometimes have a curiosity to know how I will behave when I come to die. - Whether I will be calm or ex-cited—-whether I will be filled with reminiscence or with anticipation.#! can not say. But come to the point, I must and you must. In the six thousand years that have passed only two persons have got into the eternal world without death and I do not suppose that Goth is going to send a carriage for us with horses of flame to draw us up the steeps of heaven; but I suppose we will have to go like the preceding generations. An officer from the future world will knock at the door of our heart and serve on us the writ of ejectment, and we will have to surrender. And we will wake up after these autumnal, and wintry, and vernal, and summery glories have Vanished from our vision—will wake up in a realm which has onlv one season, and that the season of everlasting love. So I look over this audience to-day—-the vast majority of you seeming in good health and spirits—and yet I realize that in a short time all of us "will he gonegone from earth and gone forever. A great many men tumble through the gates of the future, as it were, ana we do‘ not know where they have gone, and they only add gloom "and mystery to the passage; but Jesus so mightily stormed the gates of that future world, that they have never since been closely shut Christ knows what it is to leave this world, of the beauty of which He was more appreciative than we ever could be. He Knows the exquisiteness of the phosphorescence of the sea; He trod it. He knows the glories of the midnight heavens; for they were the spangled canopy of His wilderness pillow. He knows about the lilies; He twisted them into His sermon. He knows about the fowls in the air; they whirred their wav through his discourse. He knows about the sorrows of leaving this beautiful world. Not a taper was kindled in the darkness. He died physicianless. He died in cold sweat, and dizziness, and hemorrhage, and agony that have put him in sympathy with all the dving. He goes through Christendom, and"He gathers up the stings out of all the death pillows, and He puts them under His own neck and head. He gathers on his own tongue the burning thirst of many generations; The sponge is soakM in the sorrows of all those who have died in their beds, as well as soaked in the sor-, rows of all those who perished in icv or fiery martyrdom. While heaven "was Eitying, and earth was mocking, and ell was deriding He took the vinegar. ; To all those in this audience to whom life has beenan acerbiTy— lFey conid not swallow, a draught that set their teeth on edge and a-rasping—l

J reach the omnipotent sympathy of e«us Christ. The sifter of llerschel,the astronomer, used to help him in nig work. He got all the credit; she got none. She used to spend much of ner time polishing the telescopes through which he brought the distant worlds nigh, and it is my ambition now, this hour, to clear the lens of yottr spiritual vision, so that,'looking through the dark night of your earthly troubles, you may behold the glorious constellation of a mercy and a Savior’s love. Oh, my friends, do not try to carry all your ills alone. Do not put yoUr poor shoulder under the A ppenines when the Almighty Christ is ready to lift up all your burdens. When you have a trouble of any kind you rush this way and that way, and you wonder what this man will say about it and what that man will say about it; arid you try this prescription and that prescription and the other prescription. Oh! why do you not go straight to the heart of Christ, knowing that for our own sinning and suffering race He took the vinegar! Nina Sahib, after he had lost his last battle in India, fell back into the jungles of Iheri—jungles so full of malaria that no mortal can live there. He carried with him also a ruby of great luster and great value. He died in those jungles; his body was never found, and the ruby has never yet been recovered. And I fear that- to-day there are some who wilfall hack from this subject into the sickening, chilling jungles of their sin, car rying a gem of infinite value—a priceless soul to be lost forever. Oh, that that ruhv might flash in the eternal coronation! But no, there are some I fear, in this audience, who turn away from this offered mercy and comfort, and Divine sympathy, notwithstanding that Christ, for all who would accept His grace, trudged the long way, and suffered the lacerating thongs, and received in His face the expectorations of the filthy mob, and for the guilty, and the discouraged, and the discomforted of the race, took the vinegar. May God Almighty break the infatuation, and lead you out into the strong hope, and the good cheer, and the glorious sunshine oi this triumphant gospel. __ j