_Introductory Sermon by Elder George Hoke, of Ohio,
Sunday, May 14._
TEXT.--And it came to pass, that while they communed together and
reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.--Luke
24:15.
To the true child of God no conceptions of bliss are worthy of being
compared with those that flow from an ideal companionship and
association with our Lord Jesus Christ.
"To dwell with him; to feel his love,
Is heavenly bliss enjoyed above:
And the sweet expectation now
Is the same bliss begun below."
The text selected is suited to the occasion that has brought many of
us together. We have met to commune in our thoughts with each other,
and to reason together. Since the first hour of my arrival here I
could but notice the delight, and even joy, on the part of many at
meeting former acquaintances and renewing the ties of love, both
social and Christian, that have bound us together in one common
Brotherhood for years in the past, and which are still to bind us and
our children's children together in the future on earth and the
eternity in glory.
The subject for to-day naturally divides itself into three propositions:
I. _They communed and reasoned together._
II. _Jesus himself drew near._
III. _Jesus himself went with them._
We readily enough, at the start, inquire who they were that communed
and reasoned together. This we never can know with certainty, until
the scales of mortality drop from our eyes. One, we are told, was
Cleopas by name. It may have been the same Cleopas whose wife had
stood by the cross. Some think the other was Luke, the writer of the
Evangel, whom Paul calls the beloved physician.
Slowly and sadly, with crushed hopes and broken hearts, these two
loving disciples of our Lord were wending their way from the scenes of
confusion that had attended his crucifixion in Jerusalem to a quiet
little village about eight miles distant, called Emmaus. Here, at
least, they hoped to find exemption from the taunts and sneers of the
infatuated mob in the city, whose mutterings were still to be heard in
the distance, like those of a cyclone that has done its work.