Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1892 — USEFUL SUFFERING. [ARTICLE]

USEFUL SUFFERING.

Dr. Talmage Speaks of the Uses of Adversity. . Why “It Behoved Christ to Suffer”—There Has Never Been Such an Example of Enduring Patience a» We .Find on the Cross. Rev. Dr. Talmage’s- European preaching tour is drawing to a close; During the week he has preached three or four times in different cities, following out the programme already announced, and everywhere meeting large and enthusiastic audiences.’ This week he speaks at Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and Derby. The subject chosen for Sunday was “Useful Sufferings.” Text Luke xxiv, 46, “It behoved Christ to suffer.” , ) There ha\ e been scholars whomafve ventured theassertioiLthatthepains Of uur Lord were unnecessary. Indeed it was a -sehocking—waste-ief-tearsand blood and agony, unless some great end were to be reached. If men can prove that no good result comes of it, then the character of God is impeached and the universe must stand abhorrent and denunciatory at the fact that the Father allowed the butchery of his begotten. Son. . In the first place, I remark that Christ’s lacerations were necessary because man’s rescue was an impossibility except by the payment of some great sacrifice. Oujtraged law had thundered against iniquity. Man must die unless a substitute can intercept that death. Let Gabriel step forth. He refuses. Let Michael the archangel step forth. He refuses. No Roman citizen, no Athenian, no Corinthian, no reformer, no angel volunteered. Christ then bared his heart to the pang. He paid for our redemption in tears and blood and wounded feet and scourged shoulders and torn brow. “It is done.” Heaven and earth heard the snap of the prison bar. Sinai ceased to quake with wrath the moment that Calvary began to rock in crucifixion. Christ had suffered. But I remark again, the sufferings of Christ were necessary in order that the world’s sympathies might be aroused. Men are won to tho right and good through theif sympathies. The world must feel aright before it can act aright. So the cross was allowed to be lifted that the world’s sympathies might be aroused. Men who have been obdurated by the cruelties they have enacted, by the massacres they have inflicted, by the horrors of which they have been guilty have become little children in the presence of this dying Savior.. What the sword could not do, what Juggernauts could not subdue, the wounded hand of Christ has accomplished. There ariHhis moment millions of people held under the spell of that one sacrifice. The hammers that struck the spikes into the cross have broken the rocky heart of the world. Nothing but the agonies of a Saviour’s death throe could rouse the world’s sympathies.— . I remark again, “It behoved Christ to sufler” that the strength and persistance of the divine love might be demonstrated. Was it the applause of the wosd that induced''Christ on that crusade- from heaven? Why, all the universe was feet. Could the conquest of this insignificant planet have paid iiim ' for his career of pain if it had been ,'a mere matter of applause? All the honors of heaven surging at his feet. Would your cjueen give up her throne that she might rule a miserable tribe in Africa? Would the Lord Jesus Christ, on the throne of the universe come down to our planet if it were a mere matter of applause and acclamation? Nor was it an expedition undertaken for the accumulation of vast wealth. What could all the harvests Emd all the diamonds of our little world do for him whose are the glories of infinitude and eternity? Nor was it an experiment—an attempt to show what he could do with the hard hearted race. He who wheels the stars in their courses and holds the pillars of the universe on the tips of his fingers needed to make no experiment to find what he could do. Oh, I will tell you, my friends, what it was. It was the undisguised, unlimited all conquering, all consuming, infinite, eternal, omnipotent love that opened the gate, that started the star in the east, with the finger of light pointing down to the manger; that arrayed the Christmas choir at Bethleham; that opened the stable door where Christ was born; that lifted him on the cross. Love thirsty at the well. Love at the sick man’s couch. Love at the cripple’s crutch. Love sweating in the garden. Love dving on the cross. Love wrapped in the grave. You cannot mistake it. The blindest eye must see it The hardest heart must feel it. The deafest ear must hear it. Parable and miracle, wayside talk and seaside interview, all the scenes es his life, all the sufferings of his death, proving beyond controversy th*t for our ingrate earth God has yearned with stupendous and inextinguishable love. ” But I remarx again, “It behoved Christ to suffer ’ th't the nature of human guilt might be demonstrated. There is hot a common sense man in the house to-day that will not admit that the machinery of society is out of gear, that the human mind and the human heart are disorganized, that something ought tobedone-and done right away for its repair and readjustment. But the height and depth and length and breadth and hate and recklessness and the infer-

nal energy of the human heart for sin would not have been demonstrated if against the holy and innocent one of the cross it had-not been hurled in one bolt of fire. What evil had he done? Whose eyesight had he put out? None; but he had given vision to the blind. Whose child had he slain? None: but be restored the dead damsel to her mother. What Iw bad he broken? None, but he has inculcated obedience to government. What foul plot had he enacted happiness of the race? None; he had come to save a world. The only cruelty he ever enacted was to heal the sick. The only ostentation he ever displayed was to sit with publicans and sinners and swash the disciples'feet.

Again, “It behooved Christ to suffer,” that pur affections might be excited heavenward. Why, sirs, the.._ behavior of our Lord has stirred the affections of all those who ever heard of it. It has hung in the art galleries of the world with such pictures as Ghirlahdajo’s ‘’Worship of tho Magi,’’Giotto's“BaptismofChrist,” Holman Hunt's “Christ in the Temple,” Tintoret’s “Agony in the Garden,” Angelo’s “Crucifixion,” and it has called out Handel’s “Messiah,” and rung sweet chimes in Young’s “Night Thoughts,” and filled the psalmody of the world with the penitential notes of sorrow and the hosannasof Christian triumph. —— Show me any other king who has so many subjects. What is the most potent name to-day in the United States,jMn France, in England, in Scotland, in Ireland ? Jesus. Other kings have had many subjects, but where is the king who had so many admiring subjects as Christ ? Show me a regiment of a in their army, and I will show you a battailion of ten thousand men in Christ’s Show me in history where one man has given his propertv and his life for any one else, and I will show you in history hundreds and thousands of men who have cheerfully died that Christ might reign. ' Oh, yes I the Lord Jesus has won the affections of many of us. There are some of us who can say this morning, “Lord Jesus, my light and my song, my hope for time, my expectation for eternity." Altogether lovely thou art. My soul is ravished with the vision. Thou art mine. Come, let me clasp thee. Come life, come death, come scorn and pain, come whirlwind and darkness. Lord Jesus, I can not give thee up. I have heard thy voice. I have seen thy bleeding side. Lord Jesus, if I had some garland plucked from heavenly gardens I would wreathe it for thy brow. If I had some gem worthy of the place, I would set it in thy crown. It I had seraphic harp I would stride it in thy praise. But I come, lost and ruined and undope, to throw myself at thy feet. Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. But I remark again, “It behoved Christ to suffer” that the world might learn-how to suffer. Sometimes people suffer because they caifnot help themselves, but Christ had in his hands all the weapons to punish his enemies, and yet in quiescence he endured all outrage. He might have hurled the rocks of Golgotha upon his pursuers; he might have cleft the earth until it swallowed up his assailants; be might have called in re-enforcement or taken any thunderbolt, from the armory of God Omnipotent and hurled it seething and fiery among his foes, but he answered not again. Oh, my hearer! has there eve been in the history of the world such an example bf enduring patience as we find in the cross? Some of you suffer physical distresses, some of you have lifelong ailments, and they make you fretful. Sometimes you see the world laughing and romping cn tho highways of life, and you look put of the window while seated in invalid’s chair. I want to show you one this morning who had worse pains in the head than you have ever had, whose back was scourged, who was wounded in the hands and wounded in the feet and suffered all over, and I want that example to make you more enduring in your suffering and’to make you say, “Father, hot my will, but thine, be done.” You never have had any bodily, pain, and you never-s will have any bodily pain that can equal Christ’s tort pre. “It behooved Christ to suffer” that he might show you how physically to suffer. ’ Some of you are bereft. It is no random remark, because there is~ hardly a family here that has not passed under thb shadow. You have < been bereft.- Your house is a different place from what it used to be. The same furniture, the sarifc books, the same pictures, but there has been a voice hushed there. The face that used to light up the whole duelling has vanished. The pattering of the other feet does not break up the loneliness. The wave has gone over your soul, and you have sometimes thought what you would tell him when he comes back, but then the thought has flashed tipon you, be will never ccme back, * Ah ! my brother, my sister, Christ has sounded all that depth. Jesus of the bereft soul is here to-dav. Behold him ! He knows what it is to weep at the tomb. It seemr to me as if all the storms of the world’s sorrows were compressed into one sob and that son were uttersd in two words, “Jesus wept” Queen Victoria has, like other women, her pet superstitions one of which is the belief that anything made by a blind person brings luck. Accordingly the cradle with all its furnishings* for the latest Battenberg baby has been prepared entirely by the blind.