The world's great sermons, Volume 08 - Talmage to Knox Little by Unknown
page 126 of 171 (73%)
page 126 of 171 (73%)
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WATKINSON BORN IN 1838 THE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH[1] [Footnote: Printed by permission of B.P. Button & Company from "The Transfigured Sackcloth and Other Sermons," by W.L. Watkinson.] _For none might enter into the king's gate clothed with sackcloth_.--Esther iv., 2. The sign of affliction was thus excluded from the Persian court in order that royalty might not be discomposed. The monarch was to see bright raiment, flowers, pageantry, smiling faces only; to hear only the voices of singing men and singing women; no smatch of the abounding wormwood of life was to touch his lip, no glimpse of its we to disturb his serenity. The master of an empire spreading from India to Ethiopia was not to be annoyed by a passing shadow of mortality. Now, this disposition to place an interdict on disagreeable and painful things still survives. Men of all ranks and conditions ingeniously hide from themselves the dark facts of life--putting these aside, ignoring, disguising, forgetting, denying them. Revelation, however, lends no sanction to this habit of passing by the tragedy of life with averted face; and in this discourse we wish to show the entire reasonableness of revelation in its frank recognition of the dark aspects of existence. Christianity is sometimes scouted as "the religion of sorrow," and many amongst us are ready to avow that the |
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