The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1888-06-14
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Brooklyn Preacher Discourses on
tho Divine Assassination and
Its Lesson.

Its Lesson.
He Pictures q Cross Flaming with
Suffering. Flaming wIth:Trfumph.
Flaming with Glory.
Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., took
Tor his text the passage:
Whosoever doth not bear His cross and
como after me can not be my disciple. Luke
xiv, All.
He preached the following sermon:
The cross was a gibbet on which criminals
were put to death. 1t was sometimes made
in the shape Of the letter r, sometimes in
the shape of the letter x, sometimes in the
shape nf tho letter Ia simple upright;
sometimes two cross pieces against the per-
pendicular bar, SO that upon the lower cross
piece the criminal partially sat. But what
ever style of cross always disgraceful,
always agonizing. ""
When Darius conquered Babylon he put
two hundred captives to death on the cross.
When Alexander conquered Tyre he put
two thousand captives to death on the cross.
So 1t was just ar. ordinary mode of punish.
ment. But in all tie forest Of crosses on the
hills and in the valleys of the earth there..is
one cross that attracts more attention than
any other. It is not higher than the others,
it is not made out Of different wood. there is
nothing peculiar in the notch at which the
two pieces are joined, and as to the scene,
they witnessed c%rucifxions every few weeks
so. that / see a reckless man walking the
hill and kicking car elessly aside a skull, and
wondering who the villain was who had so
fat and misshapen a head; and here is an
another skull. Indeed the Bible says it
was ga place Of skulls" But about the VIC
tim on one OF these crosses all ages are cry.
ing: s.Who is He? Was He a man? Was He
a Godf" Was He man and God?"
Through the darkness of that gloomy day
I come close up enough to the cross to see
who it is. 1t is Jesus. How did He come
there? Had lie come up on the hill to look
off upon the beautiful landscape or upon o
brilliant sunset? No. He came there i'll
and exhausted. People sometimes wonder
why Christ expired so quickly on the cross,
have been on the cross for forty-eight hours
before life was extinct. l will tell you the
reason. He was exhausted when he came
there. He had been scourged. We are
horrifed at the cruelties Of the whipping
post, but those cruelt1es We're mercy as COM
pared with the scourglng of Jesus Christ.
i saw at Antwerp a picture made by Ru-
bens-Rubens' picture OF the scourging of
Jesus Christ. 1t was the most oyermaster.
ing picture I ever looked at, or ever expect
TO see. AS the long-trocked official opened
the door that hid the picture there He was
Christ with back bent and barred. The flag
elator stood with the upper teeth clinched
over the lower lip, as though to give vio-
lence to the blows. There We're the swollen
shoulders OF Christ. There were the black
~ nr1 Ilprn slrrnc l1t,so 500. H. Il 20
bleeding. There was the flesh adherlng to
the whips as they were lifted. There were
the marks where the knots in the whips
gouged out the flesh. There stood the per-
%secutor, with his foot on the calf of the leg
Of the Savior; balancing himself. On, the
ming vengeance against the Son of God, Tho
picture seized me-, it overwhelmed me; it
seemed as If it would kill me. 1 Go not think
could have looked at it five minutes and
have lived.
But that, my friends, was before Christ
had started for Calvary. That was only the
whipping. Are you ready for the journey to
the CROSSE
The carpenters have split the timber into
two pieces. They are heavy and they are
long pieces, for one of them must be fas-
tened deep down in the earth lest che strug-
They put this timber OH the shoulder OF
Christ very gradually first, to soc whether
He can stand it, and after they find He can
stand 1t, they put the whole weight upon
Him. Forward, now. to Calvary. The
hooting ana the yelling mob follow on.
Under the weight of the cross, Christ being
weary and sick, He stumbles and falls, and
they jerk ut his robe indignant that He
should have stumbled and fallen, and they
cry: sect up, get up" Christ, putting one
hand on the ground aud the other hand on
the cross, rises, looking into the face of
Mary, HIS mother, tor sympathy, but they
tell her to stand back, it is no place for q
Wonlan-"stand back and stop this crying"
Christ moves on with His burden upon His
shoulders, and there is a boy that passes
along with Him, a boy holding i mallet and
u few nails. l wonder what they are for.
Christ moves on until the burden is so great
He staggers and falls fiat into the dust and
faints dead away, and q rutian puts His foot
on Him and shdkes Him as he would q dead
dog, while another ruffian looks down at
away or whether He is only pretending to
faint away, and with jeer and contempt in
discribable says: ''tFainted, h%aye.you? Faint
ed Get up, get on" -.
Now they have arrived at the foot Of the
hill. Off with His clothes. Shall that loath.
some mob look upon the unrobed body Of
CHRISTI Yes. The commanding officers say:
"Unfasten the girdle, take off the coat, strip
Him." The work is done. Bring back the
coat, for here are the gamblers tossing up
cpln on the ground, saying: .'Who.
have it, / have tit is mine p He rolls it
up and puts it under his arm, or he xam1ne
it to see what kind of fabric it is made of.
Then they put the cross upon the ground,
and they stretch Christ upon it, and four or
five men hold Him down while they drive
the spikes home: at every thump q groap, a
groan! Alas, alas! the hour passes ON and the
time comes when they must cruelty Him.
Christ has only one garment left now, a
cap, a cap of thorns. No danger that it will
fall of, Tor the sharp edges have punctured
the temples and it is sure and fast. One ruff
fan takes hold of one end of the short beam
of the cross, and another rufian takes hold
of the other end OF the short beam Of
the cross, and another ruffian put his arms
around the waist of Christ, and another ruf.
fian takes hold Of the end of the long beam
until they come to the hole digged in tho
earth, anil with awful plunge it jars down
with its burden OF woe. It is not the picture
OF a Christ, IL is not the statue Of Christ, as
you sometimes see in q cathedral; but 1t is
the bodyeof a bleeding living, dying Christ.
but they have counted wrong. TWo wounds
for the hands, two wounds for the feet one
wound for the side, they say, five wounds,
No they have missed the worst and they
have missed the most. Did you ever see the
bramble out of which that crown of thorns
was nader Isaw one on q Brooklyn ferry
boat, IN the hands OF q gentleman who had
Just returned from Palestine, a bramble just
like that out of Wnicn the crown OF tiiOrns
was made. O how cruel and how stubborn
: were the thornsl And when that cap OF
thorns was put upon Christ it was pressed
down N Him, not five wounds but ten,
twenty, thirty-I can not count them.
There were three or tour absences that
made that scene worse. First there was tie
absence of water. The climate was hot;
the fever, the inflammation, the nervous pros
tration, the gangrene.had seized upon Him,