The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-11-22
FALMAGE's SERMON.
.rhe Mystic Number, sevsA, as It
4H 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. I. Dewitt Talnage, In recent
sermon at the BROOKLYN Tabernacle, took
for his subject Seven in the Bible" His
text was: #z
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 me ationed in Daniel,
the rule of loss and gain in Mark, where
Christ asked the people to cipher out by
that rule what IL would sprofit 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; 1t is the mineral 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 use my
text because there this numeral is for the
first introduced in journey winch 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 find that Jacob
had to- serve seven years to get
Rachel, but she was well 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 let with
the PhilIstines 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 CON-
passed seven days; Zachariah describes
q stone with seven eyes; to cleanse alep-
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 q mountain He fed multitude Of peo-
pie with seven loaves, the fragments left
filling seven baskets; aud the closing
passages Of the Bible are magnificent and
overwhelming with the imagery made up
of seven churches, seven stars, seven
cand1esticks, seven seals, seven angels,
and seven heads, and seven crowns, and
seven horns, and seven walls, and seven
plaques, and seven thunders.
Yea, this numeraI seven seems favor
lite with the Divine mind outside as well
as inside the Bible, for are there not
seven prismatic colorsy 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 fas HONS 1t with
seven features-the two ears, the two eyes,
the two nostrils and the mouth. Yea,
our body lasts only seven years, and we
gradually shed 1t for an other body after
another seven years, and SO on, for we
are, as to our bodies, septenniai animals.
So the mineral seven ranges through
nature and through revelation. 1t is the
number of perfection, aud so use it
while / speak Of the seven candlesticks,
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 candlesticks. They are
not the light, but they are to hold the
light A room in the night might have in
1t five hundred candlesticks, and yet you
could not see your hand before your face.
The only use Of candlestick, and the
only use OF church. is to hold up the
light. You see it is 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 fort
unes, and empty flour barrels, and DESC
lated cradles, and death beds Oh, how
much we have use for all the sdRen can :
dlesticks, with lights blazing from the
top of each one Of them. Light of pardon
for all sin. Light of comfort for ali
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 say
churches are not candles, but candle.
sticks, cast no slur on candlesticks. I
believe in beautiful candlesticks. The
candaesticks which God ordered for the
ancient tabernacle were something ex-
quisite. They were dream of beauty,
carved out of loneliness. They were mad
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 i n anv
city ought to be the churches-the best
built, the best ventilated, the best swept.
the best Widowed and the best chande
liered- Log cabins may do in neighbour
hoods where most Of the people live in
log ca bins; but let their be palatiaI
churches for regions where many of the
people live in palaces. Do not have a
better place for yourself than for your
Lord and King. Do not live in