The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1889-06-21
1ALMAGE'S SERMON.
Thoughts on the Unwritten Works
of Jesus.
The BoyhOOd of the Saviour Reviewed in
the Light of What History Tells
of His Days of Man-
hood

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, in recent
sermon in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, dis
cussed "Christ, the Village Lad" His
text was:
And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit
nlled with wisdom; and the grace of God was
| with Him.-Luke H. 10
! About Christ as q village lad 1 speak.
| There is for the most part a silence more
than eighteen centuries long about Christ
| between infancy aud manhood. What
kind Of boy was He? Was He a genuine
boy at all, or did there settle upon Him
from the start all the intensities of mar
| tyrdom? We have on this subject only a
little guessing, a few surmises, and here
and there an unimportant perhaps"
| Concerning what bounded that bOyhood
| on both sides we have whole libraries OF
books and whole galleries Of canvas and
| sculpture. Before the infant Christ in
| Mary's arms, or taking His first sleep in
| the rough clubhouse, all the painters bow,
| and we have Paul Veronese's Holy Fam
| uy," and Perugino's Nativity" and An
| gelico da Fiesole's Infant Christ" and
! Rubens' elaboration of the Magi," aud
! Tintoret's Alteration of the Magi," and
| ChirIandojo's Alteration of the Magi"
and Raphael's Madonna" and Orcagua's
| MADONNA" and Murillo's Madonna"
| and Madonnas by all the schools of paint
| ing, IN all IlgHGS ana S0dQ0S. anu Will ali
| styles of attractive feature and impressive
surroundings, but pen and pencil and
/ Chisel have, with few exceptions, passed
/ by Christ the village lad. Yet by three
cohjoined evidences 1 think we can come
to as accurate an idea of what Christ was
as a boy as we can of what Christ was as
a man.
First we have the brief Bible account
| Then we have the prolonged account Of
| yEb rat Christ NyaG AT thirty of
Now you have only to minify that account
| somewhat and you find what He was at
ten years of age. Temperaments never
| change. A sanguine temperament never
becomes a phlegmatic temperament. A
nervous temperament never becomes
Emphatic temperament. Religion
changes ones affections and ambitions,
but it is the same old temperament act
ing in a different direction. AS Christ
bad no religious change, He was as lad
What He was as a man, only on not so
large a SCALE When all tt addition and all
art and all history represent Him as
blonde with golden hair know He was in
boyhOod blonde.
| We have, beside, an uninspired book
that was, for the first three or four cent
uries after Christ's appearance, received
by many as inspired, and which gives
a prolonged account of ChriSt's bOyhood.
Some of it may be true, most Of it may be
true, none of it may be true. It may be
| partly built on facts, or, by the passage
of ages, some real facts may have been
distorted. But because a book is not Gi-
vinely inspired, we are not therefore to
conclude that there are not true things in
it. Prescott's conquest of Mexico" was
not inspired, but we believe it, although
it may contain mistakes. Macaulay's
"History of England" was not inspired,
but we believe it. although it may have
been married with many errors. The So
called apocryphal Gospel in which the
boyhood of Christ is dwelt upon DO not
believe to be diviuely inspired, and yet it
may present facts worthy of COnsidera-
ton. Because it repres ents the boy
Christ as performing miracles some have
overthrown that whole apOcrypha1 book.
But what right have you to say that
Christ did Lot perform miracles at ten
years of age as wall as at thirty? He was
in boyhood as certainly divine as in man
hood. Then, while a lad He must have
had the power to work miracles, whether
He did or did not work them. When, hav-
ing reached manhood, Christ turned
water into wine, that was said to be the
beginning of miracles. But that may
mean that it was the beginning of that
series of manhood miracles.
| In a word, l think that the New Testa-
meut is only small transcript of what
Jesus did and said. Indeed, the Bible de-
clares positively that if all Christ did
and said were written, the world would
not contain the books. So we are at lib
erty TO believe or reject those parts of the
apocryphal Gospel which say that when
the boy Christ, with his mother, passed a
band Of thieves, He told his mother that
two of them, Dumachus and Titus by
, | name, would be the two thieves who aft
erward would expire on crosses beside
Him. Was that more wonderful than
some OF Christ's manhood prOphesies?
Or the uninspired story that the boy
} Christ made a fountain spring from the
! roots of a sycamore tree so that His moth
er washed His coat in the stream-was
that more unbelievable than the man
hood miracle that changed cannon wa
ter into a marriage beverage? Or the un-
inspired story that two sick children were
recovered by bathing in the water where
) | Christ had washed? Was that more won
derful than the manhood miracle by
which the woman twelve years COM
plete invalid should have been made
; straight by touching the fringe of Christ's
ooatf
In other words, while I do not believe
that any of the sO-called apocryphal New
| Testament is inspired, 1 believe much of
1t is true: Just as l believe a thousand
books, none of which are divinely in
spired. Much of 1t was just like Christ.
Just as certain as the man Christ was the
I most of the time getting men out of
trouble, l think that the boy Christ was
the most of the time getting boys out of
trouble. 1 have declared to you this day
: a boys Christ. And the world wants such
a one. He did not sit around mOping over
p what was to be. what was. From the
, way in which natural objects unwreathed
themselves into His sermons after He had
become a man, conclude there was not
rock. or a hill, or a cavern, or a tree for
= miles around that He was not familiar
with in childhood. He had cautiously
felt His way down into the caves, and
had, with 1.-the and agile limb, gained
poise on many high tree-t top. His boy
hood was passed among grand scenery,
as most all the great natures have passed
/ early life among the mountains. They
may live now on the flats, but they passed
the receptive days of ladhood among the
hills. Among the mountains of New
Hampshire, or the mountains of Virginia,
: or the mountains of Kentucky, or the
mountains of Switzerland, or Italy, or
, Austria, or Scotland, or mountains as
, high and rugged as they, many of the
worlds thrilling biographies begin
Our Lords boyhood was passed in a
neighborhood twelve hundred feet above
the level of the sea and surrounded BY
| mountains Eve or six hundred feet still