Why allow that Pagan instrument of execution — "that infamous gibbet," that cursed tree, — the Cross, to enter a Church or household where JESUS is worshiped? What a matter of pain it must be to our Blessed Lord, to see His professed children continually gazing upon the instrument of His cruel death — looking backwards instead of forwards! The Cross was not the beginning of Christianity — its Victim was! Some about us say it is a symbol; if so, then it is one of diabolical wickedness! It would be just as consistent to worship a guillotine, or gallows, as a cross! To hear people talk at the present day, one would suppose that nobody was ever crucified but Christ, when many others have suffered death upon the cross before and since our Saviour!
I regret to say, that to-day it is difficult for one to distinguish between a Protestant and Roman Catholic Church building from its exterior! Crosses abound on almost all alike; indeed I have seen more crosses upon some Protestant Churches than upon Roman Catholic; and when side by side, one would think the Protestant to be the Catholic!
Our dear Saviour would have us, rather than be continually looking at "hay, wood, and stubble," take up the crosses of life, which are daily found in our path, and "follow Him," in expectation of an immortal crown!
Away with your crosses! Your iron, brass, bronze, wooden, marble, wax, paper, — yes, and your picture crosses! If you intend to be Christians of the Apostolic stamp, free your churches and households of them! But if you delight in such picture-emblems of cruelty and torture, then fill them full of them! Jesus only endured the cross, despising the shame, for the glory set before Him; and not because He loved it, or thought it a symmetrical form!
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