The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1888-01-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Christmastide Discourse in the
Brooklyn Tabernacle.
'TlIe Barn and It's surrOundings"-A
Glimpse at the Christmas Scene of
Nearly Nineteen Hundred Years
Ago and Its Sequel.

The subject of Rev. t. Dewitt Tai Images
Christmas sermon was "The Barn and It's
Surroundings" His text was:
The shepherds said one to another: Let us
now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing
which is come to pass.-Luke H., IS
DR.. Talmage said: One thousand years
of the worlds existance rolled painfully
and wearily along, and 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 Per-
sian and Chaldean aud Egyptian civiliza-
tions, but the lips of the earth and the
lips OF the sky made no answer. The
world had already been affiuent Of genius.
Among poets had appeared Homer and
Thespis and Aristrophanes and Sophocles
and Euripides and Alexis 4Hschylus, yet
no Christ to be the most poetic figure of
the centuries. Among historians had ap-
peared Herodotus and Xenophon and
Thucy dides, but no Christ from whom all
history was to date backward and for
ward-B. G. and A. D. Among conquer
ors CamiIlus and Manlius and Regulus
and Xantippus and Hannibal and Scipio
and Pompey and Cesar, yet no Christ
who was to be conquerer of earth and
Heaven.
But the slow century and the slow year
and 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 midnight. The black
window shutters of a December night
were thrown open, and some of the best
singers of the world where they ali sing
stood there, and putting back the drapery
of 6loud chanted pence anthem, until all
the echoes of hill and valley applauded
and encored the halleIujah 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 had
never before worshiped at the manger.
Here is a Madonna worth looking at. I
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, aud though German
and French and Italian and Spanish and
English pronounce it differently, they
are all names axes of one whom we find on
a 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 hsr
child, and the incidents of that most IA
nous night of the worlds history. Ra-
phaeI, in three different masterpieces,
celebrated them. Tintoret and Gufriandjo 10
surpassed themselves in the Alteration of
the Magi. Corregio needed to do nothing
more than his Madonna to become immor-
tai. The Madonna of the Lily, by LeOnar-
do da Vlnci, will kindle the admiration of
all ages. Murillo never won greater tri-
unph by his pencil than in his presenta-
ton of the Holy Family. But all the gal
1eries of Dresden are forgotten when I
think of the small room of that gallery
containing the Sistine Madonna. Yet all
of them were copies of St Matthew's Ma
donna, and Luke's Madonna, the inspired
Madonna of the Old Book, which we had
put into our hands when we were infan is.
and that we hope to have under our heads
when we die.
Behold, in the first place, that on the
first night of Christ's life God hon ored the
brute creation. You can not get in to 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 newborn babe.
And well might they kneeI. Have you
ever thought that Christ came, among
other things, to alleviate the sufferings of
the brute creation? Was it not appro-
pirate that he should during the first few
days and nights of his life earth be
surrounded by the dumb beasts whose
moan and plant and believing have for
ages been prayer to God for the arrest
ing of their tortures and Che righting of
their wrongs? 1t did not merely "happen
so'' that the unintelligent creatures of
God should have been that night
in close neighborhood. Not a
kennel in all the centuries, not
a birds nest, not a worn out
horse on towpath, not a herd
freezing in the poorly built cow pen, not
a freight car in summer time bringing the
beeves to market without water through
a thousand miles of agony, not a surgeons
room witnessing the struggles of fox, or
rabbit, or pigeon, or dog in the horrors Of
vivisection, but has an interest in the
fact that Christ was born in a stable sur
rounded by brutes. He remembers that
night and the prayer he heard in their
pitiful moan He will answer in the pun
ishment of those who maltreat the dumb
brutes. They surely have as much right
in this world as we have.
In the first chapter of Genesis you may
see that they were placed on the earth be-
fore man was-the fish and fowl the fifth
day and the quadruped the morning of
the sixth day, and man not until the aft
ernoon Of that day. The whale, the
eagle, the lion, and all the lesser Great
ures of their kind were predecessors of
by right of possession. They have also
paid rent for the places they occupied.
What an army of defonse all over the
land are the faithful watch dogs. And
who can tell what the world owes to
horse, and camel, and OK for trans
portation? And robin and lark have
bv the cantatas with which they have
filed orchard and forest, more than paid
for the few grains they have picked up
for their sustenance. When you abuse
any creature of God you strike its Great
or, and you insult the Christ who, though
he might have been welcomed into life
by princes, and taken his first infantile
slumber amid Tyrian plush, and canopied
couches, and rippling waters from royal
aqueducts dripping into basins Of ivory
and pearl ch ose to be born on a level
with a cows horn, or a camePs hoofs, or a
dogs nostril, that he might be the alleVi-
ator of brutal suffering as well as the
redeemer Of man.
Standing then, as / imagine now do,
in that Bethlehem night, with an infant
Christ on the one side and the speechless
creature Of God on the other, I cry, Look
out how you strike the rowel into that
horses side. Take off that curbed bit
from that bleeding mouth. Remove that
saddle from that raw back. Shoot not for
fun that bird that is too small for food.
Forget not to put water into the cage OF
that canary. Throw out some crumbs to
those birds caught too far north in the
winters inclemency. Arrest that man
who is making that one horse draw a
load heavy enough for three. Rush in
upon that scene where boys are torturing
q cat or transfxing butterfly or grasshop-
per. Drive not OF that old robin, for her
nest is a mothers cradle, and under her
wing there may be three or four prinaa
donnas Of the SKY in training. And in
your families and in your schools teach
the coming generation more mercy than
tho present generation has ever shown.
and 10 this marvellous Bible picture OF
the nRgIgity, " lille you point out TO them
the angel show them also the camel, aud