But once a King—despised, forsaken, crowned
Only with thorns—chose in the face of loss
Earth's poor, her weak, her outcast, gave them love,
And sent them forth to conquer in His name
The world that crucified Him, and proclaim
His empire. Lo! Pride's vanished thrones above
Behold the enduring banner of the cross!
(Text.)—The Outlook.
(398)
CHRIST THE DOOR
This poem by Mary M. Redding, is based on an actual incident of one of Dr. George Adam Smith's Syrian journeys:
A traveler once, when skies were rose and gold
With Syrian sunset, paused beside the fold
Where an Arabian shepherd housed his flock;
Only a circling wall of rough gray rock—
No door, no gate, but just an opening wide
Enough for snowy, huddling sheep to come inside.
"So," questioned he, "then no wild beasts you dread?"
"Ah, yes, the wolf is near," the shepherd said.
"But"—strange and sweet the voice divine of yore
Fell on his startled ear—"I am the door!
When skies are sown with stars, and I may trace
The velvet shadows, in this narrow space
I lay me down. No silly sheep may go
Without the fold but I, the shepherd, know.
Nor need my cherished flock, close-sheltered, warm,
Fear ravening wolf, save o'er my prostrate form."
O word of Christ—illumined evermore
For us His timid sheep—"I am the door!"
(Text.)—Sunday-school Times.
(399)
Outside one of the beautiful gateways of the magnificent mosque of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, there is a picture of an open Bible with this inscription: "The Lord said, I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved." The Mohammedans left this inscription when they took the beautiful temple from the Christians; because they could see no reference in it to Jesus Christ. Everything else that suggested Christianity or the cross was obliterated. There is a twentieth-century spirit that would obliterate Jesus Christ and the necessity of His saving work. But meanwhile He, the strong Son of God, calmly waits for the world's recognition. He has presented His proofs, and the responsibility is ours. There is no other gospel, no other road, no other Christ. For his own convenience man has invented a number of "short cuts." But it remains as true to-day as when Jesus Himself spoke the words, that he who climbs up some other way is "a thief and a robber."—Joel B. Slocum.
(400)
CHRIST, THE FIGURE OF
Monsignor Bonomelli, in a letter read at the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, June, 1910, said:
Jesus has, in reality, not vanished either
from history, or from the life of Christianity.
He lives at all times in millions of souls, He
is enthroned as King in all hearts. The
figure of Christ has not the cold splendor of
a distant star, but the warmth of a heart
which is near us, a flame burning in the soul
of believers and keeping alive their consciences.
Putting aside certain opinions,
which, honored at the moment, may possibly
be abandoned to-morrow, criticism had hoped
to effect a complete demolition of the conception
of Christ, but what criticism really
demolished was merely irrelevant matter.
The figure of Christ, after all the onslaughts
of criticism, now stands forth more pure and
divine than ever and compels our adoration.
(401)
CHRIST, THE INDEFATIGABLE
From the Catholic World we clip Cornelius Clifford's sonnet on "The Indefatigable Christ":
Go where thou wilt, His heart shalt find thee out;
Be thou in quest of wealth, or power, or fame.
Above life's tumult shall He call thy name;
His care shall compass thee with grief about;
And thou shalt know Him in thine hours of doubt,
When faith shall pierce thy darkness like a flame,
O dull of sense to Time's imperious claim,
His love shall prove thy rainfall after drought!
