Milford chronicle., 1889-11-15
DIR. TALMAGE IN ROME.
EuLoeY ON THE WORK AND PREACH
ING OF ST. PAUL.

Thrilling Interest Of Many sights in Rome.
The Scene Of Greatness aud Vileness, Of
the AIightiest and BIeanest Intellect.
Confirming Ones Faith.
RoME, Nov. 1O-The Rev. T. De Witt Tai
mage, D. D., Mrs. Talmage and Miss Tai
mage with Mr.. and Mrs. Louis Klopsch, ar
rived In this city last evening. Today the
/ great Brooklyn divine preached to a large
congregation from the text, Acts xix, 2l: II
must also see Rome" full report of the
sermon follows;
Here is Pauls itinerary. He was a travel
/ ing OF circuit preacher. He had been mobbed
and insulted, and the more good he did the
worse the world treated him. But be went
right on. Now he proposes to go to Jerusa-
lem and says; AFTER that I must also see
Rome Why did he want to visit this won
derful city In which am today permitted to
standl "To preach the Gospel you answer
No doubt Of it, but there were other reasons
why he wanted 70 see Rome. A man Of Paul's
intelligence and classic taste had fifty other
reasons for wanting 70 sec it. Your Colos-
scum 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 50 often thundered and wept.
Over the Appian Way the triumphal process
sions had already marched for hundreds Of
years, and he wanted to see that. The temple
of Saturn was already an antiquity, aud he
wanted to see that. The architecture Of the
world renowned city, be wanted to see that
The places associated with the triumphs, the
cruelties, the disasters, the wars the military
genius, the poetic and the historical fame Of
this great city, he wanted to see them. A
man like Paul, so many sided, so sympathetic,
so emotional, 50 full Of analogy, could not
have 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. II 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 majority Of them would vote Jeru- |
salem and Rome. So we can understand |
something of the record Of my text and Its I
surroundings when it says, Paul purposed in
the spirit when he had passed through Mace |
donia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem, saying; |
'After that l must also see Rome" As some |
of you are aware, with my family, and only
for the purpose Of what we can learn and the /
good we can get, am on the way TO Pales-
tine. Since leaving Brooklyn, New York, this
is the first place we have stopped. Intermedi- |
ate cities are attractive, but we have visited |
them In other years. and we hastened on, for /
I said befofe starting that while was going to |
Jerusalem must also see Rome Why do |
want to see it, Because 1 want, by visiting |
regions associated with the great Apostle to |
the Gentiles, to have my faith in Christianity |
confirmed. There are those who will go
through large expenditure to have their faith /
weakened. In my native land have known /
persons Of very limited means to pay fifty |
cents or dollar to hear a lecturer prove that /
our Christian religion is a myth. dream, a |
cheat, lie. On the contrary, l viii give all |
the thousands Of dollars that this Journey Of |
my family will cost, to have additional evil |
dence that our Christian religion is an au-
thenticated grandeur, a solemn, joyous, a .
Fapturous, a stupendous, a magnificent fact. |
So l want to sec Rome. I want you to show 1
me the places contested with apostolic min |
istry. | have heard that in your city and |
amid its surroundings, apostles suffered and /
died for Christs sake My common sense |
tells me that people do not die for the sake Of |
a falsehoOd They may practice deception |
for purposes Of gain, but put the sword to I
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, |
hear you have in this city Pauls dungeon. |
Show it to me. l must sec Rome also. While |
! am interested in this city because of her /
rulers or her citizens who are mighty in his 4
tory for virtue or vs,e or talents-Romulus, |
and Caligula, and Cincinnatus, and |
Vespasian, and Coriolanus, and Bru- |
tus, and hundred others whose |
hrsrrt,F-
ness, or black with the deepest dye-most Of |
all am l interested in this city because the |
preacher Of Mars Hill, and the defer Of /
Agrippa, and the hero of the shipwrecked
vessel in the breakers Of Melita, and the man |
who held higher than any one 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.
CURIOSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN
But my text suggests that in Paul there |
was the inquisitive and curious spirit. Had |
my text only meant that be wanted to preach /
here he would have said So Indeed in an
other place, he declared: ~ am ready to .
preach the Gospel to you who are at Rome |
also But my text suggests q sight seeing. .
This man who had been under DR.. Gamaliel /
had no lack Of phraseology, and 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 have no curiosity. About all that
can confirm my faith in the Christian re-
hgion and the worlds salvation and the souls |
future happiness, am full Of an all absorb |
ing, all compelling curiosity. Paul had |
q great curiosity about the next world, and |
so have we. / hope some day, by the grace /
Of God, TO go over and see for myself; |
but not now No well man, no prospered |
man, think, wants to go now. But the |
time viii come, think, when shall go over. /
! want to see what they do there, and want /
to see how they do it. l do not want to be |
looking through the gates ajar forever /
want them to swing wide open. There are /
ten thousand things want explained-about |
you, about myself, about the government of 4
the world, about God, abOnt everything We |
start in plain path Of what we know, and |
in minute come up against a high wall Of 4
what we do not know. l wonder how it /
looks over there. Somebody tells me it is |
like a paved city-paved with gold; and an
other man tells me it is like fountain, and |
It Is like tree, and it is like a triumphal pro-
cession; and the next man meet tells me it |
Is all hgurative. 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 |
risked his life to find the American /
continent, and shall we shudder to go out on |
voyage of discovery which shall reveal a
vaster and more brilliant countryl John |
Franklin risked his life to find passage be- !
tween icebergs, and shall we dread to find a
passage to eternal s1mmerl Men in Switzer-
land travel up the hsights Of the Matterhorn I
with an alpenstock, and guides and rockets, [
and ropes, and, getting half way up, stumble 4
and fall down in a horrible massacre. They |
just wanted to say they had been on the tops |
Of those high peaks. And shall we fear 20 go |
out for the ascent Of the eternal hills which |
start thousand miles beyond where stop the I
highest peaks of the Alps, and when in that |
ascent there is no peril A man doomed to
die stepped on the scafold and said in joy;
''Now, in ten minutes | will know the great
sasret.n One minute after the vital functions