Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1888-01-07
How Motherhood 5as b,en Honorad aud
Oonst Grated.

BROOKLYN, Dec. 25.--Services to-day
at the Brooklyn Tabernacle were jubi-
liant. Professors Browne and Ali, with
organ and coruet, were unusually pow
erful, and Mrs. Florence Rice-Knox
sang three solos. The thousands OF
people who packed the church and al
the approaches, seemed to join in the
great chorus:
ale shall reign from pole 20 pole
With iliimitable sway;
He shall reigu, whep, like a scroll,
Yonder heavens have passed away"
Rev. L. Dewitt Talmage, ID. d., took
as the subject of his sermon, 'Tne
Barn and Its Surroundings" His text
was taken from Luke H., Is:
"The shepherds said one to ano.her; Let
us now 90 even unto Bethlehem, and see this
thing which has come to pass"
DR.. Talmage said: Que thousand
years of the worlds existence rolled
painfully and YEARLY along, and no
Christ. Two thousand years, and no
Christ. Three thousand years, and no
Christ. Four thousand years, and no
Christ. .sGive us a Christ had cried
Assyrian, and Persian, and C%haldean,
and Egyptian civilizations. but the lips
of the eartn and the lips of the sky
made no answer. The world had al
ready been afluent of genius. Among
poets had appeared Homer and Thes-
PTS and A~ristophanes and Sophocles
and Euripides and Alexis Eschylds,
yet no Christ TO be the most poetic fig
ure of the centuries. Among histo~-
ians had appeared Herodotus and Ken
ophon and Thucydides; but no Christ
from whom all history was to date
backward and forward-B. G. and A.
ID. Among c~onquerors Camillus and
Nanlius aud Regulus and &antippus
and Hannibal and Scipio and Pompey
and Caesar, yet 40 Christ who was to
be conqueror OF earth and heaven.
HOUR AT LAST STRUCK.
But the slow century and the slow
year and the slow month and the slow
hour at last arrived. The world had
had mathis or concerts in the morning
and vespers or concerts in the evening,
but now it is to have a concert at mid
night. The black window shutters of
q December night were thrown open,
and some of the best singers Of a world
where they all sing stood there, and
putting back the drapery Of cloud
chanted a peace anthem. until all the
echoes Of hill and valley ~applauded and
encored the Hallelujah chorus.
At last the word has a Christ and
Just the Chrisi needs. Come, let us
90 into tn It Christmas scene as though
we had never before worshipped at the
n Here is q Madonna worth
looking at. | wonder not that the
most frequent name in all lands and
in all Christian centuries is Mary.
And there are Marys in palaces and
Marys in cabins, and though German
and French and Italian and Spanish
and English pronounce it differently,
Lhey are all namesakes of the one
whom we find on Il bed Of straw with
her pale face against the soft cheek of
Christ in the night of the Nativity. All
the great painters have tried on canvas
to present Mary and her child and the
incidents Of that most famous night OF
the worlds history. Raphael In three
different masterpieces, celebrated them.
Tintoret and Guirlandjo surpassed
themselves IN the Alteration of the
Magi. Corregio needed to do nothing
more than his Madonna to become
immortal. The Madonna of the Lily,
by Leonardo da Vinci, will kindle the
admiration of all ages. Murillo never
won greater triumph by lis pencil than
in his presentation of the
HOLY FAMILY.
But all the galleries of Dresden are
forgotten when | think OF the small
room of that gallery containing the
Sistine Madonna. Yet all of them
were COPIES of St. Matthew's Madonna,
and Luke's Madonna, the inspired Ma
donna of the Old Book, which we had
put into our hands when we were in
fants and that We hope to have under
our heads when we die.
Behold, In the first place, that on the
first day of Christ's life God honored
the brute creation. You cannot get
into that Bethlehem barn without going
past the camels, the mules, the dogs,
the oxen. The brutes Of that stable
heard the first cry Of the infant LORD.
Some of the old painters represent the
oxen and camels kneeling that night
before the new born babe. Ana well
might they kneel. Have you ever
thought that Christ came among other
things to alleviate the sutferings OF the
brute creationP Vas it not appropriate
that He should during the first Few
days and nights of His life on earth be