The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-01-26
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
4 Christmastide Discourse in the
Brooklyn Tabernacle.
"The Barn and Its Surroundings"-A
Glimpse at the Christmas Scene of
Nearly Nineteen Hundred Years
Ago and It's Sequel.

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.. Talmags said: One thousand years
of the worlds existance 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. "Give us
a Christ" had cried Assyrian aud Per-
sian and Chaldean and E syptian civ iiiza-
tions, but the lips of the earth and the
lips of the sky made no answer. The
world had already been affluent Of genius.
Among poets had appeared Homer and
Thespis and Aristrophanes and Sophocles
and Euripides and Alexis Il ;chylus, yet
no Christ to be the most poetic figure of
the centuries. Among historians had APP
peared Herodotus and Xenophon and
Thucyddes, but no Christ from whom all
history was to date backward and for
ward-B. c. and A. d. Among conquer
ors Camillus and ManIus and Regulus
and Xantippus and Hannibal and Scipio
and Pompey and Ca sar, yet no Christ
who was to be conquerer of earth and
Heaven.
But the slew cent? 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 bost
singers of the world where they all sing
stood there, and putting back the drapery
of clnnd cho nto cd a onth unt al
the echoes of hill and valley applauded
and encored the hallelujah chorus.
At last the world has 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. l
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, they
are all namesakes 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 her
child, and the incidents of that most fa-
nous night of the worlds history. Ra-
phael, in three different masterpieces,
celebrated them. Tntoret and Gufriandjo
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.
leries 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 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 crv of
the infant Lord. Some of the old painters
represent the oxen AMI camels kneeling
that night before the newborn babe.
And well might they kneel. Have YOU
ever thought that Christ came, among
other things, to alleviate the sufferiugs of
the brute creation? Was it not appro-
pirate that he should during the first few
days and nights of his life on earth be
surrounded by the dumb beasts whose |
moan and plant and believing have fer |
ages been prayer to God for the arrest. |
ing OF their fortunes and the righting of |
their wrongs? 1t did not merely "happen |
so" that the unintelligent creatures of |
Tod should have been that night |
in close neighborhood Not a
kennel in all the centuries, not
birds nest, not worn ont ]
horse on towpath, not herd
freezing in the poorly built cow.pen. not
a freight car in summer time brin cling the
beeves to market without water through
a thousand miles Of agony, not surgeons
room witnessing the struggles of fox. or
rabbit, or pigeon, or dog in the horrors of
vivisection, but has an interest in the
TACT that Christ was born in a stable sur.
rounded by brutes. He remembers that
night and the prayer he heard in their
Pltiful moan He will ans wer in the nm.
shment OF those who maltreat the dumb
brutes. They surely have as much right
N this world as we have.
In the first chapter Of Genesis you NAV
zee that they were placed on the earth he.
ore man was-the fish and fowl the fifth
lay and the quadruped the morning of
he sixth day, and man not until the aft
'rnoon OF that day. The whale. the
Eagle, the lion, and all the lesser creat.
res of their kind were predecessors Of
he human family. They have the world
~ right of possession. They have also
,aid rent for the places they occupied.
What an army of defense all over the
and are the faithful watch dogs, And
Who can tell what the world owes to
lorse, and camel, and OK for trans.
'ortation? And robin and lark have
" the cantatas with which thew have
lied orchard and forest, more than paid
or the few grains they haye picked mn
or their sustenance. When you abuse
ny creature of God you strike its Great.
T, and you insult the Christ who. tbopcb
q might have been welcomed into life
y princes, and taken his first infantile
lumber amid Tyrian plush, and canopied
ouches, and ripping waters from roval
queducts dripping into basins of ivory
nd pearl, chose to be born on a level .
nth cows horn, or cancels boots. or q
og's nostril, that he might be the allevi. ,
tor OF brutal suffering as well as the +,
,dsemer of man.