The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1889-02-22
MANkAro FREE Press.
FRIDAY. FEBRUARY az. 1890,
CHRISTS WRITING.
TRACING IN THE DUST THE WORDS
HYPOCRISY AND FORGIVENESS.

RACING IN The DUST THE WORDS
HYPOCRISY AND FORGIVENESS.
h World Is Still Under the Divine Eye.
Christ's Gentle Treatment of the Erring
woman-An Illustration of the Worlds
Injustice.
BROOKLYN, N. Y, Feb. t7.-Dr. Talmage
preached this morning In the Brooklyn Tab
ernacle on the subject, ''The Literature of
the Dust" After explaining appropriate
passages of Scripture concerning Christ he
gave out the hymn:
Oh, could I speak the matchless worth,
Oh. could l sound the glories forth
Which In my Saviour shinel
Text. John viii, O: "Jesus stopped down
and wrote on the ground"
A Mohammedan mosque stands now where
stood Herod's temple, the scene of my
text. Solomon's temple had stood there, but
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Numbered it down Zorro
babels temple had stood there, but that had
been FRUSTRATED. Now we take our places in
a temple that Herod built because he was
fond Of great architecture and he wanted the
preceding temples to seem insignificant. Put
eight or ten modern cathedrals together and
they would not equal that structure. 1t Gov
cred nineteen acres. There were marble pill
lars supporting roofs of cedar and silver
tables on which stood golden cups, and there
were carvings exquisite and inscriptions re-
splendent, glittering balustrades and n
mented gateways. The building Of this tenn
pie kept ten thousand workmen busy fortysix
years. In that stupendous pile Of pomp and
---tG..,. 80 Tlrs@N and N Hcfnntnn
throny stood about him, when a wild dis
turbance took place. A group of men are
pulling and pushing along a woman who
had committed the worst crime against
society. When they have brought her
in front of Christ, they ask that He sem
tence her to death by stoning. They are
a critical, merciless, disingeuuous crowd.
They want to get Christ into controversy and
public apprehension. II he say, L q her
die" they viii charge him with cruelty. II
he let her go, they will charge him with
being In completely with wickedness.
Whichever way he does, they would howl at
him. Then occurs a scene which has not
been sufficiently regarded. He leaves the
lounge or bench on which he was sitting and
goes down on one knee or both knees, and
with the foreinger of his right hand he
xxi W l. III IN NooS "a SHS H~SNf
word after word. But they were not to be
diverted or hindered. They kept on demand
ing that no settle this case Of transgression,
until he looked up and told them tn It they
might themselves begin the woman's assassi-
nation, if the complainant who had never
done anything wrong himself would open the
fire. Go ahead, but be sure that the man
who filings the first missile is immaculate"
Then he resumed writing with his finger in
the dust of the floor, word after word. In
stead of looking over his shoulder to see what
he had written, the scoundrel skulked away.
Finally the whole place is clear Of pursuers,
antagonists and plaintiffs, and when Christ
has finished this strange chirography in the
dust, he looks up and finds the woman all
alone. The prisoner Is the only one of the
court room left, the judges, the police, the
prosecuting attorneys having cleared out.
Christ is victor, and he says to the woman,
"Where are the prosecutors in this casei Are
they all comet Then I discharge you. Go
and sin no more.n
CHRIST WROTE IN SHIFTING n VANISHING
DUST.
have always wondered what Christ wrote
on the ground. For do you realize that is the
only time that he ever wrote at alli ! know
ludb EuoCOtuo odlo IhdO Jul Aou OhN0 W -
letter to Abgarus, the king Of Odessa, but
there is no good evidence of such q CORE
spondence. The wisest being the world ever
saw and the one who had more to say than
any one who ever lived, never writing a
book or a chapter, or a page or a paragraph
or a word on parchment. Nothing but this
literature of the dust, and one sweep of a
brush or one breath of a wind obliterated
&lok foravoH Apnnnr oil fhn rollc nf tho VOL
umes of the first library founded at Thebes,
there was not one scroll of Christ. Among
the seven hundred thousand books of the Al
exandrian library, which by the infamous
decree of Caliph Omar were used as fuel to
heat the four thousand baths of the city, not
one sentence mad Christ penned. Among all
the infinitre.e of volumes now standing in the
libraries of Edinburgh, the British museum,
or Berlin or Vienna, or the learned reposi-
tories of all nations, not one word written di-
rectly by the fingers of Christ. All that no
ever wrote, he wrote in dust; uncertain,
shifting, vanishing dust.
My text says he stopped down and wrote
on the ground. Standing straight up a man
might write on the ground with a staff, but
If with his fingers he would write in the dust,
he must benz clear over. Aye, he must get,
Ut ledoI, Oh Ol0 hIlGc vi no I'LL "IlOS Oh
the ground. Be not surprised that no stopped
down. His whole life was a STOPPING down.
STOPPING down from castle to barn. Stoop-
ing down from celestial homage to mobo-
cratic jeer. From residence above the stars
to where a star had to fall to designate his
landing place. From heavens front door to
the worlds back gate. From writing in
round and silvered letters of constellation
- -.I,- -, A. h1,,o earN1I 80 haouan 20
writing on the ground in the dust, which the
feet of the crowd had left in Herod's temple.
If in January you a ever stepped out OF a
princes conservatory that had Mexican cac-
tus and magnolias in full bloom, into the
outside air 10 degs. below zero, you may get
some idea Of Christ's change of atmosphere
from celestial to terrestrial. How many
heavens there are I Know not, but there are
at least three, for Paul was ''caught up into
the third heaven" Christ came down from
highest heaven to the secondheaven and down
from second heaven to first heaven, down
swifter than meteors ever fell, down amidst
stellar splendors that himself eclipsed, down
through clouds, through atmospheres, through
appalling space, down to where there was no
lower depth. From being waited on at the
banquet of the skies to the broiling of fish for
his own breakfast on the banks Of tho lake.
From emblazoned chariots of eternity to the
saddle of a mules back. From homage
cherubic, seraphic, ~archangelic, to the pay
ing Of sixty-two and a half cents of tax to
Caesar. From the deathless country to a
tomb built to hide human dissolution. The
uplifted wave of Galilee was high, but he had
to come down, before with his feet, he could
touch it, and the whirlwind that rose above
the billow was higher yet, but he had to come
down, before with his lip he could kiss it into
quiet. Bethlehem a STOPPING down. Nazareth
| a STOPPING down. Death between W. burg
lars a stopping down. Yes, it was in conson-
ance with humiliations that had gone before
and with self abnegations that came after,
when on that memorable day in Herod's
| temple he stopped down and wrote on the
ground.
THIS WORLD IS STILL UNDER THE DIVINE
EYE.
Whether the words he was writing were in
Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, l cannot say,
for he knew all those languages. But he ID
still STOPPING down and with his finger writ
ing on the ground; in the winter, in letters
of crystals in the spring, in letters of flowers
in summer, In golden letters Of harvest; in
autumn, in letters of fire on fallen leaves
How it would sweeten up and enrich INT EN-
blazon this world, could we see Christ's cali
graphy all over It'll This world was not flung
out into space thousands Of years ago and
then left to look out for itself. It is still
under the divine care. Christ never for 6
half second takes his hand off it, or it would
soon be a shipwrecked world, q de
funct world, an obsolete world, al
abandoned world, a dead world. "Lei
there be light" vas said at the begin
ming. And Christ stands under the wintry
skies and says, Let there be snowfiakes to en-
rich the earth; and under the clouds o.
spring, and says, Como ye blossoms ant
make redolent the orchards; and in Septem
Der dips the branches into the vat Of beauti
/ fnl cnlors and sUinns tham in the hazu air