The west Tennessee star. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1888, 1888-11-02
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Mystic Number, Seven, as It
Appears in the Bible.
The Mathematics of the Sacred Volume -
All the Numerals Bow to the Figure
SeVen-The Seven Mighty
Gifts of God to Man.


Rev T. Dewitt Talmage, in a recent
sermon at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, took
for his subject ''Seven in the Bible" His
text was:
God blessed the seventh day.
The mathematics of the Bible is notice
able; the geometry and the arithmetic;
the square in Ezekiel; the circle spoken
of in Isaiah; the curve alluded to in Job;
the rule of fractions mentioned in Daniel,
the rule of loss and gain in Mark, where
Christ asked the people to cipher out by
that rule what it would ''profit man if
he gain the whole world and lose his
soul" But there is one mathematical
figure that is crowned above all others in
the Bible; it is the numeraI seven. which
the Arabians got from India and all fol-
lowing ages have taken from the Ara
bian. 1t stands between the figure six
and the figure eight. In the Bible all the
other numerals bow to it. Over three
hundred times is it mentioned in the
Scriptures, either alone or compounded
with other words. In Genesis the week
is rounded into seven days, and 1 use my
text because there this numeral is for the
first introduced in Journey which halts
not until in the close of the Book of Rev
Citations its monument is built into the
wall of Heaven in crysolite, which
in the strata of precious stones is the
seventh. In the Bible we fud that Jacob
had to serve seven years to get
Rachel, but she was we'll worth it, and
foretelling the years of prosperity and
famine in Pharaoh's time the seven fat
oxen were eaten up of the seven~lean
oxen; and wisdom is said to be built On
seven pillars; and the ark was LETT with
the Phil1stin seven years; and Naaman
for the cure of his leprOsy plunged in the
Jordan seven times; the dead child, when
Elisha breathed into its mouth,
signaled its arrival back into
consciousness by sneezing seven
times; to the house that Ezekiel saw in
vision there were seven steps; the walls of
Jericho before they fell down were COM
passed seven days; Zachariah des cribes
a stone with seven eyes; to cleanse lep-
rous house the door must be sprinkled
with pigeons blood seven times; in Ca
naan were overthrown seven nations; on
one occasion Christ cast out seven devils;
on mountain He fed multitude of peo-
pie with seven loaves, the fragments left
filing seven baskets; and the closing
passages of the Bible are magnificent and
overwhelming with the imagery made up
of seven churches, seven stars, seven
candlesticks, seven seals, seven angels,
and seven he ads, and seven crowns, and
seven horns, and seven walls, and seven
plaques, and seven thunders.
Yea, this numeraI seven seems a favor
ite with the Divine mind outside as we'll
as inside the Bible, for are there not
seven prismatic colOrs? And when God
with the rainbow wrote the comforting
thought that the world would never have
another deluge, He wrote it on the scroll
| of the sky in ink of seven colors. He
| grouped into the Pleiades seven stars.
| Rome, the capital of the world, sat on
seven hills. When God would make the
most intelligent thing on earth, the hu-
man countenance, He shions it with
| seven features-the two ears, the two eyes,
| the two nostrils and ths mouth. Yea,
| our body lasts only seven years, and we
! gradually shed it for an other body after
| another seven years, and so on, for we
| are, as to our bodies, septennial animals.
| So the numeral seven ranges through
nature and through revelation. It is the
! number of perfection, and so 1 use it
/ while I speak Of the seven candles ticks,
the seven stars, the seven seals and the
| seven thunders.
The seven golden candlesticks were and
| are the Churches. Mark you, the churches
never were and never can be candles.
! They are only caudlesticks. They are
| not the light, but they are to hold the
! light, A room in the night might have in
! it five hundred candles ticks, and yet you
| could not see your hand before your face.
The only use of a candlestick, and the
! only use of a church, is to hold up the
| light. You see it is O dark world, the
night of sin, the night of trouble, the
night of superstition, the night of perse :
cutiOn, the night Of poverty, the night of
sickness, the night of death; aye, about
fifty nights have interlocked their
shadows. The whole race goes stumbling
over prostrated hopes and fallen fort
unes, and empty -four barrels, and DESC
| lated cradles, and death beds. Oh, how
much we have use for all the seven can
dlesticks, with lights blazing from the
top of each one of them. Light of pardon
for all sin. Light of comfort for all
trouble. Light of encouragement for all
| dependency. Light of eternal riches for
all poverty. Light of rescue for all per
| secution. Light of reunion for all the be-
reft. Light of Heaven for all the dying.
And that light is Christ, who is the
light that shall yet irradiate the hemi-
spheres. But mark you, when l say
/ churches are not candles, but candle =
sticks, cast no slur on candlesticks. ]
believe in beautiful candIesticks. The
| candIesticks which God ordered for the
| ancient tabernacle were some thing eX-
| quisite. They were a dream Of beauty,
! carved out of loYeliness. They were made
out of hammered gold, stood in a foot OF
gold and had six branches Of gold bloom
| ing all along in six lilies of gold each, and
/ lips of gold from which the candles lifted
their holy fire. And the best houses in an y
| city ought to be the churches-the best
built, the best ventilated, the best swept
| the best windowed and the best chande
| liered. Log cabins may do in neighbor-
hoods where most the people live in
log ca BINS; but let their he palatia
churches for regions where many Of the
! l.. l., n - =
better place for yourself than for your
Lord and King. Do not live in
parlor and put your Chris
in a kitchen. These seven can
dlesticks Of which / speak were not made
out Of pewter or iron; they were golden
candlesticks, and gold is not only a valu-
able, but a bright metal Have every
thing about your church bright-youI
ushers with smiling faces, your music
jubilant your handshaking cordial, youl
entire services attractive. Many people
feel that in church they must look dull in
order to be reverential, and many, whose
faces in other kinds of assemblage, show
all the different phases Of emotion, have
in church no more expression than the
back wheel of hearse. Brighten up anC
be responsive. II you feel like weeping
weep If you feel like smiling, smile
II you feel indignant at some wronl
assailed frolR the pulpit, frown. Do no
leave your naturalness and resiliency a
home because It Is Sunday morning. II
as officers of a church, you meet peopl
at the church door with black look, ant
the music black, and the minister j.
black preach a black sermon, and froI
invocation to benediction have the i'm
preston black, few viii come, and thos
who do cAzne viii wish they had not com
at all
Golden candlestioksl Scour up the si
lilies on each branch and know that th
more lovely and bright they are, the NOR
ft they are to hold the light. But