Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-01-04
IA. Barn. and lis Surroundings. y
IN THIS BIBLE NIGHT SCENE GOD
HONORED SCIENCE.
NEARLY ALL THE MESSIAHS COME
FROM THE FIELDS.
IN ALL AGES GOD HAS HONORED
MOTHERHOOD.
M rA1MAGE,s SERMON SUNDAY. DEC. 25TH.
DR.. TALMAGR's SERMON SUNDAY, DEC. 25TH.

BROOKLYN, December 25.-Services to-
day at the Br,toklvn Tabernacle we're jnbi-
liant. Professors Browne and Ali, with or
gan and cornet, were unusually pow erful,
and Mrs Florence Rice Knox sang three
solos. The thousands of people who p .ck-
I'd the church and all the appi caches SEEM
ed to join in the great chorus:
"He shall reign from po e to pole
with illimitabIe sway;
He shall reign. When, like scroll,
Yonder heavens have passed away"
Rev. I. Dewitt Talmage, DID,, took as
the subject of his sermon. "The Barn and
Its SUI roundings." His text was taken
from Luke ii, Is: ''Tbe shepherds said one
to another Let us now go even unto Bethle-
hem. and see this thing which is come to
pass" DR.. Talmage said:
One Thousand years of the worlds exis-
tence rolled painfully and YEARLY along, aud
no Christ Two Thousand years, and no
Christ. Three thousand years, and no
Christ. Four Thousand years and no Christ.
''Give us a Christ" had cried Assyrian and
Persian and Chaldean and Egyptian civili-
cation, but the lips of the earth and the lips
of the sky made no answer. The world had
already been aff1uent of genius. Among
poets had appeared Homer and Thespie and
Aristophanes and Sophocles and Euripides
and Alexis EschyIus yet no Christ to be the
most poetic figure of the centuries. Among
historians had appeared Herod1tus and
Xenophon and Thucy dides, but no Christ
from whom all history was to date back
ward and forward-B G. and A. D. Among
conquerors Camilus and Manliussand Reg
ulus and Xantippus and Hannibal and
ScIpio and Pompey and Caesar, yet no Christ
who was to be conQueror OF earth and heav-
en.
But the slow century and the slow year
and the slow month and the slow hour at
last arrived. The world bad had maths
and concerts in. the morning and vespers or
concerts in the evening, but now it is to
have concert at midnight. The black
| window shutters of a 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 oil cloud chant
ed peace anthem, until all the echoes o.
hill aud valley applauded and eucored the
Hallelujah chorus.
AT last the world has a Christ and just
the Christ it needs. Come, let us go into
| that Christmas scene as though We hac
never before worshipped at the manger.-
| Here is Madonna worth looking at.
| 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 Eng
lish pronounce 1t differently, they are all
namesakes of the one whom we find on a
bed of straw with her pale face against the
| soft cheek of Christ in the Nativity. All
the great painters have tried on canvas tc
present Mary and her child and the incidents
| of that most famous night of the world s
history. Raphael in three different master.
pieces celebrated them. Tintoret and CUR
iandiO surpassed themselves in the adora.
tion of the Magi. Corregio needed to dc
nothing more than his Madonna to become
immortal. Tue Madonna of the Lilly, by
| Leonardo da VincI, will kindle the admira
ton of all ages. Murillo never won greater
| triumph by his pencil than in his presenta-
zion of the Holy Family. But all the gal
leries of Dresden are forgotten when | think
of the small room of that gallery contain
ing the SIsline Madonna. Yet all of them
we're copies of S.. Matthew's Madonna, aud
Luke's Madonna, t. inspired Madonna OF
the Cd Book, Which we bad put into our
hands when we were infants and that we
hope to have under our heads when we die.
Behold. in the first place, that on the first
night of Cbiisr's life God h"nored the brute
creation. Yuu cannot get into that Betble-
hem barn without going past the camels,
the mules. ibe dogs, the oxen. The bIutes
f that stable heard the first cry of the in
FAINT Lore. Some of the old painters repre-
sent the oxen and camels kueslng that
right before the new born babe. AID well
mig hit they kneel. Have you ever thought
that Christ came, among other things, to al
leviate the sufferngs ofthe brute creation
Was it not appropriate that be should dur
ing the first few days and nights of His life
on ealth be surrounded by the dumb beasts
whose moan and plaint and believing have
| for ages been prayer to God for the arrest
| ing of their tortures and the righting OF
their wrongs? 1t did not merely ''happeE
so'' that the unintellfgent creatures of God
should have been hat night in close neigh
borhood. Not a kennel in all the centuries
not birds nest, not a worn out horse or
tow-path, not I. herd freezing in the poorly
built cow pen, not a freight car in summer
time bringing the beeves to market withou
water througha thousand miles of agony
not surgeons room witnessing the strug
giles of fox or rabbit or pigeon or dog in the
horrors of vivisection but has an interest il
the fact that Christ was born in stable
surrounded by brutes. He remembers tina
hight, and the prayer He heard in tbei
pitiful moan He will answer in the punish
ment of those who maltreat the duml
brutes. They surely have as much right il
this world as we have.
In the first chapter of Genesis you ma.
see that they were placed on the earth be
fore man was, the fish and fowl created tn
fifth day, and the qnadruped the m"r,inl
of the sixth day, and man not until the al
ternoon.o of that day. The whale, the eagle
the lion, and all the lesser creatures of thei
kind were predecessors of the human fam
ly. They have the world by right of pos
session. They have also pad rent r tn
places they occupied. What an army of d.