Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-11-11
TALMAGE IS TN ROME.
BrOOklyn'S Divine, Like Paul, Sees
and Talks Of the Eternal City,
HOW MUCH A VISIT TO IT MEANS.
Antiquities That We're Old Before the Birth
of the NaZarene.
AN Adm APPRECIATING THE APOSTLE.
ESPECIAL TO THE D1sPArcH.I


ROME, November 10.-The Rev. T. De
Witt Talmage, D. D., Mrs. Talmage and
Miss Talmage, with Mr.. and Mrs. Louis
Klopsch, arrived in this city last evening.
To-day the great Brooklyn divine preached
to large congregation from the text, Acts
xix, 81: 81 must also see Rome" A full
report of the sermon follows:
Here is Paul's itinerary. He was trav-
cling or circuit preacher. He had been
mobbed and insulted, and the more good he
did the worse the world treated him. But
he went right on. Now he proposes to go
to Jerusalem, and says: AFTER that must
also see Rome Why did he want to
visit this wonderful city in which I am
to-day permitted to stand? ''To preach
the gospel" you answer. No doubt
of it, but there were other reasons why
he wanted to see Rome A man of
Paul's intelligence and classic taste had 80
other reasons for wanting to see it. Your
Colosseum was at that time in process of
erection, and he wanted to see it. The
Forum was even then an old structure, and
the eloquent apostle wanted to see that
building in which eloquence had so often
thundered and wept. Over the Appian
way the triumphal professions had already
marched for hundreds of years, and he
wanted to see that The Temple of Saturn
was already an antiquity, and he wanted to
see that. The architecture of the world re-
nowned city he wanted to see that The
places associated with the triumphs, the
cruelties, the disasters, the wars, the mill
tary genius, the poetic and the rhetorical
fame of this great city, he wanted to see
them, A man like Paul, so many sided, so
sympathetic, so emotional, so full of
analogy, could not hive been Indifferent to
the antiquities and the Splendors which
move every rightly organized human being.
And with what thrill of interest he walked
these Streets those only who for the first
time like ourselves enter Rome can imagine.
THE TWO FAvoRTTE CITIES.
If the inhabitants of all Christendom
were gathered into one plain, and it were
put to them which two cities they would
above all others wish to see the vast major
ity of them would vote Jerusalem and
Rome. So we can understand something of
the record of my text and its surroundings
when it SAYS, Paul purposed in the spirit
when be had passed through Macedonia and
Aehaia to 60 to Jerusalem, saying: After
that must also see Rome" As some of
you are aware, with nv family and only
AOA b4G pun pOsG VI hlldl We GdH lGdTu anu
the good we can get / am on the way to
Palestine. Since leaving Brooklyn, n. Y,
this is the first place we have stopped. In
termediate cities are attractive, but we have
visited them in other years, and we has
tened on, for 1 said before starting that
while 1 was going to see Jerusalem 1 must
also see Rome. Why do 1 want to see it?
Because 1 want by visiting re-
gions associated with the great
onosf1a 70 he Gan4f1aS
my faith in Christianity confirmed There
are tn 7se who will go through large expen-
diture to have their faith weakened. Inmy
native land have known persons of very
limited means to paw so cents or dollar to
hear lecturer prove that our Christian re-
hgion is a myth, a dream, a cheat, lie.
On the contrary, will give all the thous-
ands of dollars that this journey of nv
family will cost to have additional evidence
that our Christian religion is an authenti-
Gated grandeur, a solemn, joyous, rap
turous, stupendous, magnificent fact
So l want to see Rome. I want you to show
me the places conn ,cted with apostolic
ministry. 1 have heard that, in your city
and amid its surroundings, apostles suffered
and died for Christi sake. Ny common
sense tells me that people do not die for the
sake of falsehood.
THINGS MEN DON'T DIE FOR.
Ihey may practice deception for pur-
poses of gain; but put the sword to their |
heart or arrange the halter around their |
neck, or kindle the fire around their feet, |
and they would say my life is worth more |
than ANYTHING can gain by losing it. 1 |
hear you have in this city Paul's dungeon. |
Show it to me. l must see Rome also. |
While / am interested In this CITY because /
of her rulers or her citizens who are mighty |
in history for virtue or vice or talents, Ro- |
mulus, and Caliguli, and Cincinnatus, and |
Vespasian, and Coriolanus. and Brutus. and /
a hundred Others whose names are bright
with an exceeding brightness, or black with
the deepest dye, most of all am 1 interested
in this city because the preacher of Mars
Hill, and the defer of Agrippa and the
hero of the sEipwrecked vessel in the
breakers of Melita, and the man who held
higher than anyone that the world ever saw
the torch of Resurrection, lived, and
preached, and was massacred here. Show
me every place connected with his memory.
/ must also see Rome
But my text suggests that in Paul there
was the inquisitiYe and curious spirit. Had
my text only meant that he wanted to preach
here he would have said So Indeed, in an
other place, he declared: 'I am ready to
preach the Gospel to you who are at Rome
also" But my text suggests a sight seeing |
This man who had been under DR.. GamalieI |
AaN NJ AdCh VI puTdSeo1Ogy, ana was
used to saying exactly what he meant, and |
he said: II must also see Rome There is
such thing as Christian curiosity. Paul |
had it and some of us have it. About |
other peoples business 1 have no curiosity 4
A GREAT CURIOSITY.
About all that can confirm nv faith in
le Christian religion and the worlds saliva
tion and the SOULS future happiness, am
full of an all absorbing, all compelling
curiosity. Paul had great curiosity about
the next world, and so have we. 1 hope
some day, by the grace of God, to go over
and see for myself; but not now No we'll
man, no pTospered man, think, wants to 90
now. But the time will come, 1 think,
when shall go over. want to see what
they do there, and l want to see how thev
do it. do not want to be looking through
the gates ajar forever. 1 want them to
swing wide open. There are 10 900 things /
want explainec-about you and about nv
self, about the government of this world.
about God, about everything. We start in
q plain path of what we know, and in a
minute come up against high wall of what
we do not know. L wonder how it looks
over there. Somebody tells me it is like
paved city-paved with gold; and
another man tells me it is like fountain,
and it is like tree, and it's like triumphal
procession; and the next man I meet tells
me 1t is all fguratiye. 1 really want to
know, after the body is resurrected, what
they wear and what they eat; and have an
immeasurable curiosity to know what it is,
and how it is, and where it is. Columbus