The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-01-06
TALMAGEY SERMON.
A Christmastide Discourse in the
Brooklyn Tabernacle.

Brook1y0 Y80ofno0lo.
"Ths Harm and ITS sarrsasainss"-
Glimpse ut The Christmas Scene q
Nearly Ninstssa Hueilrsil Tsars
Ago and Its Sequel.
The subject Of Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage's
Christmas sermon was "The Barn and Its
Surroundings" His text WAS:
The shepherds said one to another: Let 10
now 60 even unto Bethlehem. and see this thing
which is come to pasA-Luke H., Ia.
Or. Talmage said: One thousand years
of the worlds existance rolled painfully
and wearily along. aud No Christ Two
thousand years, and no Christ. Three
thousand years, and no Christ. Four
thousand years, and no Christ. ''Give Us
Q Christ" had cried Assyrian and Per.
sian ard Chaldsan and Egyptian civili.a-
tions, but the lips Of the earth and the
lips OF the sky made NO answer. The
world had already bssn afiiusnt of genius.
Among poets had appeared Homer and
Thespis and Aristrophanes and Sophocles
and Euripides and Alexis Eschylus, yet
no Christ to be the most poetic q cure of
the centuries. Among historians had APP
peared Herodotus and Xenophon and
Thucy dides, but no Christ from whom all
history was to date backward and for.
ward-B. C. and A. D. Among conquer.
ors Camillus and Manlius and Regulus
and Xantippus and Hannibal and Scipio
and Pompey and Cesar, vet 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
q rived. 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, AMI some Of the best
sin gers 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 enccred 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 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, aud 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 ra'e 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
Al. - S1,-A e.
nous night of the worlds history. RAJ
phael, in three different masterpieces,
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-
dc 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 oil the gall
leres of Dresden are forgotten when
think Of the small room of that gallery
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 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 tina. stable hsard the first cry of
the infant Lord. Some of the old painters
represent the oxen AMI camels kneeling
that night before the newborn babe.
Aud well might they kneel. Have you
ever thought that Christ came, among
OF her 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 for
ages been PRAYER to God for the arr ,s.-
ing Of their fortunes and the right. 2 o.
their wrongs? II did not merely ''happen
so" tina. the unintelligent creatures of
God should have been that night
in close neighborhood. Not a
kennel IN all the centuries, not
a bids nest, not worn .out
horse on towpath, not herd
freezing in the poorly.built cow.pen, no.
n frei ,ht car in summer time bringing the
a thousand mile Of agony, not a surgeons
room witnessing the struggles OF fox, or
rabbit. or pigeon, or dog in the horrors OF
but has an interest in the
fact that Christ was born in a stable sur.
by brutes. He remembers that
night and the prayer he heard in their
pitifuI moan He will answer in the pun
ishment of those who maltreat the dumb
brutes. They surely have Is 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.
eTnoon of that day. The whale, the
eagle, the lion,, and all the lesser Great
ures of their kind were predecessors Of
the human family. They have tie 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 tine cantatas with which they nave
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
amid Tyrian plush, and canopied
and ripping waters from royal
aqueducts dripping into basins Of ivory
and pearl chose to be born on . level
with a cows horn, or a camel's hoofs, or .
dogs nostril, that he might be the allevi-
atcr Of brutal suffering as well as the
redeemer of man.
Standing then, As imagine now do,
in that Bethlehem night, with an infant