"MAN OF SORROWS!"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 145, 20 June 1924, Page 11

"MAN OF SORROWS!"

GIPSY PAT SMITH'S STIRRING APPEAL. ".Man of Sorrows!" what a name, For the Son of God, who came JUiineu sinners to reclaim! Hallelujah! What a Saviour! The words of this beautiful hymn, ■sung with requisite pat-hose by a crowded congregation in the Town Hall last •night, were backed by a. stirring appeal to salvation made by Captain Gipsy Pat Smith. Nothing so touching, so tragic has ever been written as the eternal story of the Passion and Crucifixion of Our Lord, Who, in the final moments of His supreme agony on the Cross at Calvary uttered what have been described as the saddest words ever written: "My God! My God Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" And the story of the Cross fold afresh by 'Gipsy Pat in vivid lanpuage urged many to signify their repentance.

Basing his theme on the words from the' Lamentations of Jeremiah, " Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there .be. any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the" Lord had afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger." Gipsy Pat Smith took for the subject of his address, " The Man of Sorrows " —of the Man who could challenge the entire world to produce sorrow like unto His sorrow. "If Jesus Christ had not died on Calvary," cried Gipsy Smith passionately, " would to God I had liever been born, for there is no grace of salvation outside the blood of Jesus Christ. ._ . . This magnificent Christ . . . Who was rich for our sakes, but became poor that we, by his- poverty, might become rich."

In moving words, Gipsy Pat traced the scenes of the Passion, his mental picture of the Stations of the Cross being drawn with a striking touch-, that brought with ease to the simplest mind the scenes enacted in the world's greatest tragedy. Christ"s betrayal by Judas Iscariot. His arrest" by the Roman; soldiers in Gethsemane, His appearance beiore Pontius Pilate, His scourging, His mockery by the soldiery, His journcv to Calvary, His last words and death en the Cross, were in turn related by Gipsy Pat with appropriate comments Lo each phase of the story. " I tell you," he said. " some of us shuddered at what wo read of the atrocities, or the alleged atrocities, perpetuated by the Bolsheviks, but 1 tell you that no Bolshevik of Russia ever treated his captive, bis slave, worse than-they treated our Master in days gone by." It, was love for sinners that held Christ, to Calvary's Cross, for no nails could nave kept Him there had Ho willed otherwise. Christ's death was the most wonderful exhibition of love' the world has ever seen, and there was not one ray of hope for anyone who .turned his back on Jesus Christ, who turned his back on such a sacrifice.

"\ou must either accept Him tonight, or you must crucify Him afresh Do not crucify Him afresh. Do not tu-'n Him down. Do not hurt Him afresh will you?" pleaded Gipsy Pat in con! elusion, and amid the soft singing by the congregation of " Just as I am without one plea/ many went forward in open confession of their acceptance of the missioner's appeal. .