The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-11-08
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discourse of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
Subject: ''seven ira the Esibie.''

TExT-"God Blessed the Seventh Lap"-
Genesis H.. %.
The mathematics of the Bible is noticeable,
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 asks the people to
cipher out by that rule what it would profit
a man if he gain the whole world and lose
his own soul. But there is one mathematical
figure that is crowned above all others in
the Bible, it is the numeral seven, which
the Arabians got from India, and all follow.
ing ages have taken from the Arabians. II
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 use my text
because there this numeral is for the first
introduced in a journey which hats not un-
til in the close of the Book of Revelations 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 find
that Jacob had to serve seven years to get
Rachael, but she was well worth it; and
fore reteing the years of prosperity and fam
inc 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 left with the Phillistines
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 compassed seven days;
Iachariah describes stone with seven eyes;
to C eanse leprous house the door must be
sprinkled with pigeons blood seven times;
in Canaan were overthroan seven nations;
on one occasion Christ cast out seven devils;
on mountain he fed multitude of people
with seven loaves, the fragments left filling
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 heads, and seven
crowns, and seven horns, and seven spirits,
and seven vials, and seven plaques, and seven
thunders.
Yea this numeral seven seems a favor
lite with the Divine mind outside as well as
inside the Rlble, for are there not seven pris-
matte coors! And when God with the rain
bow 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 human countenance. He fash
ions it with seven features-the two ears, the
two eyes, the two nostrils and the mouth.
| Yea, our hody lasts only seven years, and
we gradually shed it for another 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: 1t is the num5er Of
! perfection, and so use it while | speak Of
| the seven caadlesticks. the seven stars, the
sever seals and the seven thNnders.
| The seven go den canllesticks were and are
the churches Mark you, the churches never
were, and never can be, candles They are
| only candlesticks They are not the light,
but they are to bold the light A room in
| the night might have in it five hundred can
hani 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 a 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 Frustrated
hopes and fallen fortunes. and empty
| -four barrels, and desolated cradles, and death
| beds Oh, how much we have use for all the
seven canilesticks, with lights blazing from
| the top Of each one of them! Light of par
don for all sim Light of comfort for all
| troublel Light of encouragement for all
| dependency Light of eternal riches for
al poverty Light of rescue for all persecu
tion Light of reunion for all the bereft
Light of heaven for all the dying And that
light is Christ, who is the the Light that
shall yet irradiate the hemispheres. But
mark you, when say churches are not can
dies, but candesticks, l cast no slur on can
dlestcks
! believe in beautiful candlesticks The
candlestcks that God ordered for the ancient
! tabernacle were something exquisite. They
were dream of beauty carved out of lowell
ness. They were made of hammered gold
stood in foot of gold and had six branche!
OF goll blooming a. along in six lilies of golt
each. and lips of gold from which the candle:
lifted their holy fire. And the best houses il
anv city ouGhG to he the churches-the bes
| built, the hest ventilated the best swept th,
hest windowed and The best chandeliered
Log cabins may do in neighhorhood
where most of the people live in los
cabins; but let there be palatial churches
for regions where many of the peo
pie live in palaces Do not have bette
place for yourself than for your Lord ant
King Do not live in parlor and put you
Christ in kitchen. These seven candlestick
of which speak were not made ont OF pew
ter or iron, they were golden candlestcks
and gold is not only valuable but brlgh
metal Have everything about your churcl
bright-your ushers with smiling faces, you
music jubiIant, your hand shaking cordial
your entire service attractive. Many peopl
feel that in church they must look dull il
order to he reverential. and many who's
faces in other kinds of assemblage show a
the different phases of emotion
have in church no more expression tina
the back wheel of hearse. Brighten up an
be responsive If you feel like weeping
weep If you feel like smiling. smile.
YOU feel indignant at some wrong assalle
from The pulpit, frown. Do not leave you
atrralness and resiliency home because it
Sunday morning. II as officers of churc
you meet people at the church door with
black looS. and have the music black, an
the minister in black preach black sermon
and from invocation TO tenedction have tn
impression back, few will come, and thos
who do come will wish they had not come a
all.
Golden candlesticksl Scour up the 81
lilies on each branch and know that the NOR
lovely and bright they are, the more mt the
are to bold the Ii ht But Christless churc
is damage to the world rather than gooc
Cromwell stabbed his cavalry horses in st
Faul's Cathedral. and many now use th
church as a place in which to stable thei
vanities and worldliness. worldly churc
is cand estick without the candle, and
had its prototype in st. Sophia, in Cor
stantinop!e built to the glory of God by Cor
stantine lut transformed to base uses b
Mohammed tie Sc ond. Built out of colore
marble: cupoa with twenty-four wir
dows soaring to the height of $50 feet
the ceiling one great bewilderment {
mosaic; galleries supported by eight column
Of porphyry and sixty-seven columns {
green jasper; nine bronze doors with altt
relievo-work fascinating to the eye of an
artist; vases and vestments encrusted wit
all manner of precious stones. -Four wall
on fire with indescribable splendor. Thong
labor was cheap the building cost one millio
five hundred thousand dollars Ecc.es
astical structure almost supernatural
pomp and majesty. But Mohammedanisi
tore down from the walls OF tbs
building all the sanity Christian images an
high up in the dome the figure of the eros
was rubbed out that the crescent of the bal
barous Turk might be substituted. A gres
church but no Christi A gorgeous candle
stick hut no candlei Ten thousand sue
churches would not give the world as niue
light as one home made tai ,ow candle bywhic
last night some Grandmother in the eightit
put on her spectacles and read the Psalms
David in large type. Up with the churrhe
by all meansl Hundreds of them, Thousand
OF them, and the more the better But ],
eac h one be blaze of heavenly light maxim
the world hr ghter and brighter till the la