that is reached out to save. I follow Him to the cross, I follow Him to
the grave, where we are going, where our loved ones are sleeping. The
third day He came back from the darkness; He showed men, by the marks of
the nails in His hands and by the print of the spear in His side, that
He was the very Jesus they parted with at the foot of the cross; and He
ascended to heaven to be the friend of any aching heart that needs a
friend at the right hand of God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a
philosophy, it is not a dogma; it is the story of a Person, a real hand
to grasp, a real Saviour to love, a real God to save. Marvelous as is
this story that never can grow old and will be the burden of the songs
of the redeemed, more wonderful is the Christ of history. Men ask for
proof. You do not ask for proof of a sun when the world is bending low
with golden harvests The other day there was a gathering of great men,
scholars, philosophers. It so happened that one man who had lost his
faith, congratulated his fellows that superstition was dying out, that
the day was at hand when Christianity would be an effete thing of the
past. James Russell Lowell rose, the blood rushing to his cheeks, and
quietly said: "Show me twelve miles square in the world in which I live
where childhood is cared for, where womanhood is reverenced, where old
age is protected, where life and property are absolutely safe, where it
is possible for a decent man to live decently--where the Gospel of Jesus
Christ has not gone before and made that life possible; and then I will
listen to your revilings of my Master." Can I go nearer your heart?
There is a wide difference between men, but there is one side of human
nature that is the same; it is that we call the heart--that which loves,
that which fears, that which suffers, that which is the same in the
poorest laborer that ever handled the spade as in the greatest scholar
that ever graced a university. If we can get the rubbish from the
heart, the good news of God sounds the same to all.