The Russellville Democrat., 1889-02-28
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Discourse on Christ's Writing tn
 the Dust.
The Significance of the Immortal Sentence Rendered More Forcibie by the Rar- ity of His writing-The "Lit-
 erature or the Dust"

erature or the Dust"
 Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, in a recent sermon at Brooklyn Tabernacle. took for his subject 'sThe Literature of the Dust" His text was:
 Jesus stopped down and wrote on the ground. John viii, G:
 A Mohammedan mosque stands now where once stood Herod's temple, the scene of my text. Solomon's temple had stood there, but Nebuchadnezzar thun- dered it down. Zorobabel's temple had stood there, but that had been prostrated. Now we take our places in 0 temple that Herod built because he was fond of great architecture and he wanted the preced- ing temples to seem insignificant Put eight or ten modern cathedrals together and they would not equal that structure. It covered nineteen acres. There were marble pillars supporting roofs of cedar and silver tables on which stood golden cups, and there were carvings exquisite and inscriptions resplendent, glittering balustrades and ornamented gateways. The building of this temple kept ten thousand workmen busy for forty-slx years. In that stupendous pile of pomp and magnificence sat Christ, and a listen ing throng stood about Him, when wild disturbance took place. A group of men are pulling and pushing along woman who had committed the worst crime against society. When they have brought her in front of Christ they ask that He sentence her to death by stoning. They are a critical, merciless, disingenuous crowd. They want to get Christ into con : troversy and public apprehension. If he say "Let her die," they will charge Him with cruelty. If He let her go, they will charge Him with being in complicity 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 fore- finger of His right hand He begins to write in the dust of the floor word after word. But they were not to be diverted or hindered. They kept on demanding that he settle this case of trangression until he looked up and told them that they might themselves begin the woman's assassina- tion, If tho complainant who had never done any thing wrong himself would open the fire. "Go ahead, but be sure that the man who filings the first missile is immac- ulate." Then He resumed writing with his finger in the dust of the floor, word after word. Instead of looking over His shoul- der to see what He had written the scoun- drels 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 wom- an: "Where are the prosecutors in this case? Are they all gone? Then discharge you; go and sin no more."
 l have always wondered what Christ wrote on the ground. For do you realize that is the only time that He ever wrote at all? l know that Eusebius says that Christ once wrote letter to Abgarus, the King of Edessa, but there is no good evidence of such a correspondence. The wisest be- ing the world ever saw, and the one who had more to say than any one who ever lived, never writing book or chapter, or page, or paragraph, or @ word on parchment. Nothing but this little creat- ure on dust, and one sweep of brush or one breath of wind obliterated that for ever. Among all the rolls of the volumes of the first library founded at Thebes there was not one scroll of Christ. Among the seven hundred thousand books of the AlexanGrian library, which by the in- famous decree of Caliph Omar were used as fuel to heat the four thousand baths of ffty ,ok penned. Among all the infinitude of vol umes now standing in the libraries of Ed inburg, the British Museum or Berlin or Vienna, or the learned repositories of all nations, not one word written directly by the finger of Christ All that He ever wrote He wrote in dust, uncertain, shift Ing. vanishing dust.
 My text says He stopped down and wrote on the ground. Standing straight up man might write on the ground with a staff, but if with his fingers he would write in the dust, he must bend clear over. Aye, he must get at least on one knee or he can not write on the ground. Be not surprised that He stopped down. Stoop- Ing down from castle to barn. Stopping down from celestial homage to mobocratic jeer. From residence above the stars to
  landing place. From Heavens front door to the worlds back gate. From writing in round and silvered letters of constellation and galaxy on the blue scroll af Heaven, to writing on the ground In the dust, which the feet of the crowd had lett In Herod's temple. If in January you have ever stepped out of Princes conservatory that had Mexican cactus lac, s,, ..h II outside air ten degrees 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 second Heaven, and down from second Heaven to first Heaven-down swifter than meteors ever fell-down amidst stellar splendors that Himself sclipsed-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 the lake. From emblazoned chariots of eternity to the saddle of a mule's back The homage cherubic, seraphic, archangelic, to the paying of sixty-two and half cents of tax to Cesar. From the death- less country to tomb built to hide hu- man dissolution. The uplifted wave of Galilee was high, but He had to come down before with His feet He could touch 1t; and the whirlwind that rose above the pillow was higher yet; but He had to come down before-with His lip He could kiss 1t into quiet Bethlehem a-stooping down. Nazareth a-stooping down. Death be- tween two burglars acstooping down. Yes, it was in eonsonance with humilia- tions that had gone before, and with self abnegations that come after, when on that memorable day in Herod's temple He stopped down and wrote on the ground.
 Whether the words he was writing were in Greek. or Latin, or Hebrew, can not say, for He knew all those languages.