Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1889-04-20
AR0MATICS FOR EASTER.
Or. TALMAeE DESCRIBES THE SCENES
OF cHRlsT's RESURRECTION.

OF cHRIsT's RESURRECTION.
The Adornments OF tho Tomb-The Innu-
mernble Hosts Of the Dead-Tho GlorIes
OF the Resurrection of the Righteous.
The Life beyond the Tomb.
BROOKLYN, April PA vast null
titude attended the Easter services at
the Brooklyn tabernacle this morning.
The pews, the aisles and all the ad
joining rooms were thronged, and
multitudes in the street could not gain
an entrance. Rev. T. De Witt Tai
mage, d. D., preached on the subject,
Anomalies for Easter" The pulpit
and galleries of the church had elab-
crate floral decorations. The congre-
cation sang the opening hymn:
We praise thee, o God for the Son of thy love,
For Jesus who died and is now gone above.
DIR. Talmage took two texts, Luke
xiv, /: Bringing the spices which
they had prepared" Corinthians
XIV, 50: ''The trumpet shall sound"
He said:
Enchanting work have I before me
this Easter morning, for, initiating
these women of the text, who brought
aromatics to the mausoleum of Christ,
] am going to unrou frankincense and
balm and ottar of roses and cardamon
from the East Indies and odors from
Arabia, and, when we can inhale no
more of the perfume, then we will
talk of sweet sounds and hear from
the music that shall wake the dead.
Having on other casters described the
whole scene, I need only in four or
five sentences say: Christ was lying
fiat on his back, hfeless, amidst sculp-
tured rocks, rocks over him, rocks I'M
der him, and door of rocks all
bounded by the flowers and fountains
of Joseph's country seat Then a
bright immortal, having descended
from heaven, quick and flashing as a
failing meteor, picks up the door of
rock and puts it aside as though
it were a chair and sits on
it. Then Christ unwraps himself
of his mortuary apparel and takes the
turban from his head and folds it up
deliberately and lays it down in one
place and then puts the shroud in an
other place and comes out and finds
thatthe soldiers who had been on guard
are lying around, pallid and in dead
sWoon, their swords bent and useless
The illustrious prisoner of the tomb is
discharged and five hundred people see
him at once. An especial congress of
ecclesiastics called pay bride to the
resuscitated soldiers to say that there
was no resurrection and that while
they were overcome of slumber the
Christians had played resurrectionists
and stolen the corpse. The Marys are
at the tomb with aromatics.
SYMBOLISM OF THE FLOWERS.
Why did not these women of the
text bring thorns and nettles, for
these would more thoroughly have ex-
pressed the piercing sorrows of them
selves and their Lord2 Why did they
not bring some national ensign, such
as that of the Roman eagle, typical of
conquest3 No, they bring aromatics
suggestive to me of the fact that the
Gospel is to sweeten and deodorize the
world. The world has so much of
putrefaction and malodor that Christ
is going to roll over it waves of frank
incense and sprinkle it all over with
sweet smelling myrrh. Thousands of
years before this Solomon had said
that Christ was lily and Isaiah had
declared that under the Gospel the
desert would bloom like the rose but
the world was slow to take the floral
hint. And so now the women of the
text bring hands full and arms full of
redolence and perhaps unwittingly
confirm and emphasize the lesson of
deodorization. When Christ's Gospel
has conquered the earth the last offense
to the olfactories will have left the
world; sweet, pure air will have blown
through every home, and churches
will be freed from the curse of i'll
ventilation and the world will become
two great gardens, the empurpled
and emblazoned and emparadised
hemispheres. Sin is a buzzard,
holiness is dove. Sin is night
shade, holiness is flower. If you are
trying to reform the world open the
windows of that tenement house and
pour through il draught of Gods
pure atmosphere and set q geranium
or a heliotrope on the window sill;
cleanse the air and you will help
cleanse the soul. How dare this world
SO often insult that feature of the
human face which God has made the
most prominent feature in human
physiognomy2 70 prove how he him
self loves anomalies | bring the fact
that there are millions of flowers on
prairies and in mountain Businesses
the fragrance of which no human
being ever breathes, and he must have
grown them there for his own regale-
ment And for the compliment the
world paid Christ by giving him a
sepulcher in Josephs garden he will
yet make the whole earth q garden.
Yes, he expressed his delight with fra
GRANGE in the first book of the Bible,
when he said, 1.-THE Lord smelled a
sweet savor;" and he filed the air of
the ancient tabernacle and temple with
sweet incense; and there are small
bottles of perfume in heaven described
in Revelation as golden walls full of
odors. preach an ambrosial gospel
which will yet extirpate from the
world all foulness and rancidity and
the last noisomeness and the last me
phitic gas. Glad am l that though
the world had chiefly spikes for the
Saviour's feet and thorns for the Sa
yiour's brow, the magi put franklin
cense upon his cradle and the Marys
brought frankincense for his grave.
ORDER OUT OF DIScoRD.
Notice also that Christs mausoleum
was opened by conclusion. 1t was a
great earthquake that put its twisted
key into the involved and labyrinthine
lock of that tomb. Conclusion That
is the power that opens all the tombs
that are opened at all. Tomb of soul
aud tomb of nations Conclusion be-
tween England and the thirteen colo
mics, and forth comes free government
il America. Conclusion between
.'@nce and Germany, and forth comes
among the rocks on Mount Sinai, and