The Brookhaven leader., 1889-11-21
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Greeting to the Christians Of
the Eternal City.
The brooklyn Pastor, Like st. Paul of
Old, Visits the Christians ut Rome,
Carrying Them Words Of
Good Cheer.


for delivery at Rome, which is predioat-
ed on the follow text:
Unjust also see Rome.-Acts xix, 81
Here is Paul's itinerary. He was q
travelling 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.
Nov he proposes to go to Jerusalem,
and says: after that l must also see
Rome" Why did no want to visit
this wonderful city in which l am to-day
permitted to stand? ITO 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 fifty
other reasons for wanting to see it.
Your Colosseum was at that time in
process Of erection, and he wanted to
zee it. The Forum was even then an
old structure, and the eloquent apostle
wanted to SEQ that building in which
eloquence had so often Numbered and
wept. Over the Appian Way the tri-
umphal 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 ar
chitecture of the world-renowned city,
he wanted to see that. The places as
ISOLATED with the triumphs, the cruel
ties, the disasters, the wars, the mill
tary genius, the poetic and the rhe-
torical fame of this great city, he
wanted to see them. A man like Paul,
so many sided, so sympathetic, so emo
tional, so 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.
If the inhabitants of all Christendom
were gathered into one plain, and 1t
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 under
stand something of the record of my
text and its surroundings when it says,
Paul purposed in the spirit when he had
passed through Macedonia and Achaia
to go to Jerusalem, saying: after that
] 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 l
am on the way to Palestine. Since leav-
ing Brooklyn, N. Y, this is the first
place we have stopped. intermediate
cities are attractive, but we have visited
them in other years, and we fastened
on, for l said before starting that while
/ was going to see Jerusalem l must also
see Rome. Why do | want to see 1T?
Because want, by visiting regions asso-
ciated with the great apostle, to see 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 l
have known persons of very limited
means to pay fifty cents or a dollar to
hear a lecturer prove that our Christian
religion is a myth, dream, cheat, a
lie. On the contrary, l will give the
thousands of dollars that this journey of
my family will cost to have additional
evidence that our Christian religion is
an authenticated grandeur, a solemn, a
joyous, rapturous, stupendous, a
magnificent fact
SO | want to see Rome. l want you
to show me the places connected with
apostolic ministry. / have heard that
in your city and amid its surroundings
apostles suffered and died for Christ's
sake. My common sense tells me that
people do not die for the sake of a false
hood. They may practice deception
for the purpose of gain, but put the
sword to their heart, or arrange the hal
ter around their neck or kindle a fire
around their feet, and they would say
my life is worth more than any thing l
can gain by losing it. l 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 CT til
zens who are mighty in history or virtue,
vice or talents, Romulas, and Caligu-
la, 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 interested
in this city because the preacher of Mars
Hill, and defer of Agrippa, and the hero
of the shipwrecked vessel in the break
ers 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.
But my text suggests that in Paul
there was the inquisitive and curious
spirit. Had my text only meant that he
wanted to preach here, he would have
said so. Indeed, in another place, he
declared: II am ready to preach the
gospel to you who are at Rome also"
But my text suggests a sightseeing.
This man who had been under DIR. Gam
aliel had no lack of phraseology, and
was used to saying what he meant, and
he said: II must also see Rome"
There is such thing as Christian Curl
osity. Paul had it nd some of us have
it. About other peoples business have
no curiosity. About all that can con-
firm my faith in the Christian religion
and the worlds salvation and the souls
future happiness l am full of an allah
sorbing, all-compeling curiosity. Paul
had great curiosity about the next
world, and so have we. l 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 will come, l
think. when shall go over. / want to