School Sermons; Preached to the Boys at Adams Academy, Quincy, Mass (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...lifted up from the earth. The punishment of crucifixion which he suffered was not merely agonizing, but disgraceful, because the criminal was nailed or tied to his stake, and set up where every passer-by might look at him and make fun of him, at any moment during the three days which sometimes elapsed before death released him. Socrates was given poison in a prison cell, where nobody was present but the friends who chose to come; but Jesus was exposed, hung up by a punishment, part of whose terrible warning was this very exposure. And he has drawn all men unto him. Men and women have been coming for centuries to look at this criminal hanging on the cross; the first artists in the world have exhausted their genius to paint this horrible and revolting exhibition; the form of the dying Christ has been wrought in every species of precious metal and stone and wood for people to hold and gaze at and kiss; the cross has been set up on a million spires as the most satisfactory object to attract the sun's rays, and it would be simply impossible for any nation to revive the Eoman punishment of crucifixion, not because it is agonizing and lingering, but because the disgrace is turned into honor, and a governor would be torn to pieces who dared to use the blessed symbol again as a curse. So true it is, that he, being lifted up, has drawn all men unto him. Now why is this? Why has this spectacle of loathsome torture, this cross that Cicero declared it was an outrage to name with reference to a Boman, drawn men to it? Not merely because there was suffering patiently borne; but because the sufferer was a martyr, --the greatest of all martyrs; because he lost his life rather than stop the work of making the world better. Most men are punished because they...