Sharp County record., 1888-01-05
&MON.
5urse in the
8ernacle.
Ci[ON
"A Its Surroundinss"-A
at the Christmas Scene Of
sSoarIy Nineteen Hundred Years
Ago and It's Sequel.

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., ID.
DR.. Talmage said: Oae thousand years
of the worlds exstance rolled painfully
and wearily along, and no Christ. Two
thousand years, and no Christ. lhree
thousand years, and no Christ. Four
thousand years, and no Christ. "Give us
n Christ" had cried Assyrian and Per-
sian and Chaldean and E ,yptian civiliza'
tons, hut the lips of the earth and the
lips of ;Ge sky made no answer. The
world had already bean affiuent Of genius.
Among poets had appeared Homer and
Thespis and Aristrophanes and Sophocles
and Euripides and Alexis E'chylus, yet
no Christ to be the most poetic figure or
the centuries. Among historians had ap-
reared Herodotus and Xsnophon aud
Thucydides, but no Christ from whom all
history was to date backward and for
ward-B. c. and A. D. Among conquer
ors Camillus and ManluS and Regulu
and Xantippus and Hannibal and Sclpio
and Pompey and Caesar, 81 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 all sing
stood there, and putting back the drapery
of cloud chanted peace anthem, until all
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
q 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. Tintoret 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.
uo do. Van Oi, uIi kiudla the aHmiratiO of
ages. Murillo never won greater tri-
unph by his pencil than in his presenta-
ton of the Holy Family. But all the gal.
leres of Dresden are forgotten when
think of the small room of that gallery
contain ing 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 infants.
and that we hope to have under our heads
when we die.
Behold, in the first place, that on the
first night Of ChristAo life God hon ored the
brute creation. You can not get nto 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 we'll might they kneel. 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 on earth be
surrounded by the dumb beasts whose
moan and plant and believing have fer
nges been prayer to God for the arrest
ing of their tortures and the 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 q
kennel in all the centuries, not
birds nest, not worn out
horse on towpath, not herd
freezing in the poorly-built cow-pen. not
freight car in summer timo bringing the
beeves to market without water through
thousand miles of agony, net surgeons
room witnessing the struggles of fox, or
rabbit, or pigeon, or dog in the horrors of
y,yisection, but has an interest in the
fact that Christ was born in stable sur.
rounded by brutes, He remembers that
night and the prayer he heard in their
ritiful moan He will answer in the pun
i,bmsnt 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 oil the lesser Great.
ures of their kind were predecessors of
the human family. They have tbe world
by right of possession. They have also
paid rent for the places they occupied.
What an army of defense 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
by the cantatas with which they have
filled orchard and forest, more than paid
for the few grains they have picked up
Cor their sustenance. When you abuse
creature of God you strike its Great
,Su insult the Christ who though
lave been welcomed into life
Rd taken his first infantile
,.io ,,1,,.h nd ol