07. Redemption
Redemption
COLORED PREACHER’S ILLUSTRATION”.—A colored preacher pictured a transaction in the councils of Eternity in man’s behalf, about as follows: Heaven was searched in vain for one willing to redeem the sinful race. No angel was found able to stay the sword which Justice held over helpless humanity. But Jesus declared: “Father, prepare me a body, and I will go down there and settle it all; I will bear the punishment due them, I will give my life for them.” Jesus paid it all.
CRUCIFIXION.—As sentence was pronounced, “Thou shalt becrucified, “the person was stripped and fastened to a post, about as high as the waist, and was then scourged with rods or whips made of leather strips armed with small bits of lead or bone. After the scourging, the person was compelled to bear his own cross to the place of execution. The cross was so fixed into the earth that the feet of the sufferer were usually about two feet from the ground. In or near the middle of the upright post was a projection, to which he was raised by cords, and, being previously divested of his clothing, he was first bound to the cross-beam, and then nailed by his hands with spikes. In order to lessen the pain, it is said, wine medicated with myrrh, and sometimes vinegar, was given. This draught Jesus refused, choosing to suffer to the full extent the pains of the terrible death. The Jews ended the sufferings of the victim before sundown. This was done sometimes by building a fire at the foot of the cross, or by breaking the limbs with a hammer, or by piercing the body with a spear.
SEED LIFE.—Three raspberry plants were raised from seeds taken from the skeleton of a man found in a burial-mound, thirty feet below the surface of the earth, near Dorchester, England. With this skeleton were coins, which, from their age, would indicate that the seeds must have been seventeen hundred years old. It is declared that wheat growing in England sprang from seed taken from the wrappings of an Egyptian mummy four thousand years old.
THOSE THINGS ARE TRUE.—A strong friendship existed between Michael Mercatus and Marsilius Ficinus. They discoursed on the state of man after death, and agreed: “That whichsoever of them should first die should inform the other of the life beyond, and whether the soul be immortal or not.” Some time after this agreement, Mercatus was at his study, when he heard the noise of a horse’s gallop and then stopping at his door. He heard Ficinus, his friend, crying to him: “O Michael, Michael! those things are true, they are true!” Michael, wondering to hear his friend’s voice, rose up, and opening the casement, saw Marsilius riding away on a white horse. He called after him, and followed him with his eye, but he soon vanished out of sight. Amazed at this, he inquired if anything had happened to Marsilius, who then lived at Florence. Upon inquiry he found that he had died at the very time he had heard and seen him. THE SUBSTITUTE.—In the time of Napoleon a man offered to serve in the army as a substitute for another who had been drafted. A battle took place and the substitute was killed. Later on, another draft was made, and they wanted a second time to take the man whose former substitute had been killed. “No,” said he, “you can’t take me; I am dead. I was shot at such a battle.” They would not recognize his claim, and the matter was carried to Napoleon, who cleared the man on the ground that he was exempt from service because the substitute had taken his place.