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Cross of Christ. I have met people who ignored the Cross, to whom it was an offense, and they mocked at the “religion of the shambles” ; but I haye yet to meet one such who has deep peace and joy of soul. Paradise enters into us, and we into Paradise through the Cross of our Lord Tesus Christ. And as we listen we hear the voice of physical need, “I thirst.” The Cross of Christ is the appeal to God for the body as well as the soul. There is redemption of the body, and every need of the body, its hunger, its thirst, its- infirmity, finds expression, so to speak, Godward, through Christ on the Cross. Again, as we listen we hear the voice of the soul’s deepest need, “My God! My God! why hast Thou for saken Me?” That is death-separation from God; that is Hell—“Depart from Me.” And He “tasted death for every man.” That little word “Why?” is a dan gerous word to use when we are in the furnace and on the Cross, to ask God the reason for things. It often makes us stumble; but if you will fol low the example of the Master, you will always be safe. “My God! Why?” Cling to God while you ask the question, and sooner or later it will be answered. The mistake is that “Why?” should sometimes make us turn our faces away from God in the times of our crucifixion. Then we hear the voices of human love, “Woman, behold thy son! Be hold thy mother! Through the Cross of Christ, about all there is in mother hood, and fatherhood, and childhood, and wifehood, has come to. us. You do not find the home really where the Cross has not touched. Dean Farrar points out the fact that in all the class ic literature of the ancients there is not a reference to the joys of childhood, iust because they had no joys; they
were chattels and slaves. And there is no reference to the joy of wifehood; and an ingrate is the man who may thank God for home and all that means, and not accept Jesus Christ on the Cross, Then, as you listen, you hear the voice of victory, “It is finished.” The work of atonement is done. “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit," the note of victorv still. And it is right there where the death of the Christian, the physical death of the Christian, begins. He does not have to say, “Why hast Thou forsaken me?” That is death, but Jesus died for him, and he can look up and say, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” The dying of the Chris tian is just the commending of the spirit, redeemed by the blood of Christ, into the hands of the Father. We might look about the Cross and learn something. “The people stood beholding,” some of the religious— priests—wagging their heads and mocking. Those who wag their heads and mock still at the Cross of Jesus are sometimes the most religious. There was a group of women with just enough religion to make them miserable. They had come along. After faith had failed, their love holds out and it brings them near the Cross. Oh, friend, it is better to have enough faith and love to make you miser able than to have none at all; and if you will keep near the Cross, in it you are near the Lord. I love to look at the sturdy Roman centurion, as strong a man, perhaps, as Roman civilization produced. He has a duty to perform; he has the papers in his pocket, and as an officer he must perform that duty. He is in tellectually convinced. “Surely this is a righteous man,” and bye-and-bye, “This is the son of a god.” But he keeps right on with the Crucifixion. I know men of clear intellect, who are
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