Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1889-11-14
[ MUST ALSO SEE ROME.
AN ELooUENr sERMON By THE REV.
DIR TALMAGE
The Eminent brooklyn Divine In tho
Eternal City, Studying the Streets. Up
and Down which the Apostle Paul
Walked and Where He Preached.

large cOuBIeHNtlOu III tuo CITY VI 0omot
from the text. Acts 10, 21: Il must also !
see Rome" A full report Of the sermon
follows:
Here is Paurs itinerary. He was a
travelling or circuit preacher. He had
been mobbed and insulted, and the more
good be did the worse the world treated
him. But he went right on. Now he
proposes to 60 to Jerusalem and says:
After that must also see Rome. Why
did he want to see this wonderful city
in which / am to- day permitted to stand?
ITO preach the Gospel" you answer.
No doubt of it, but there were other
ressons why he wanted to see Rome. A
man of Paurs 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 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 renowned city, he wanted to
see that. The places associated with
the triumphs, the cruelties, the disas-
ters, the wars, the military genius, the
poetic and the rhetorical fame of this
great city, he wanted to see them.
man like Paul, so many-sided, so SYM
pathetic, so emotional, so full of anal
ogy, could not have been Indifferent to
the antiquities and 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 it were put to them
which two cities they would above all
others wish to see, the vast majority 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 he had passed through
Macedonia and Achaia to 60 to
Jerusalem, saying: "Aftsr that I
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
|
| ing Brooklyn, N. Y, this is the first
place we have stopped. lnterme diate 9
cities are attractive but we have visited
them in other years, and We fastened
on, for 1 said before starting that while
1 was going to see Jerusalem must also
see Rome. Why do want to see it?
Because want, by visiting regions as
sociated with the great apostle to the
| - ka- faS in icfI
anity confirmed. There are those who
will go through large expenditure to
have their faith weakened. In my native
land'I have known persons of very linn
tied means to pay fifty cents or q dollar
to hear lecturer prove that our Chris
tian religion is myth, q dream, cheat,
lie. On the contrary, l will give al
the thousands of dollars that this jour-
ney of my family will cost no have ad.
ditional evidence that our Christian
religion is an authenticated grandeur, {
solemn, JOYOUS. rapturous, a stu.
pendous, magnificent fact. SO wan
to see Rome. l want you to show me
the places connected with Apostolic
ministry. have heard that, in you
city and amid its surroundings, apostles
suffered and died for Christs sake. Nj,
not die for the sake of falsehood
They may practice deception for thu
purpose of gain, but put the sword Il
their heart, or arrange the halter arount
their neck, or kindle the fire arount
their feet, and they would say my lif
is worth more than anything can gail
by losing it. I hear yeu have in thi
city PauIs dungeon. Show it to me.
must see Rome also. While I am in
/ terested in this city because of her rul
J ers or her citizens who are mighty il
, history for virture, or vice, or talents
, Romulus, and Caliguli, and Cincin
natus, and Vespasian, and Coriolanus
and Brutus, and hundred others who's
names are bright with an exceedin
brightness, or black with the deepes
r dye, most of all am I interested in thi
city because the preacher of Mars hill
: and the defer of Agrippa, and the her
of the shipwrecked vessel in the break
8 ers of Melita, and the man who he'll
Y higher than any one that the world eve
saw the torch of Resurrection, lived
; and preached, and was massacred herr
!, Show me every place connectedwith b
8 memory. / must also see Rome.
But my text suggests that in Paulthe
. |
o Had my text only meant that he wante
1 to preach here he would have said 81
Indeed, in another place, he declares
Il am ready to preach the Gospel to yo
d who are at Rome Also" But my te.
r suggests a sight seeing. This man WI
had been under DR.. Gamaliel had no lac
y of phraseology, and was used to sayir
Q exactly what he meant, and he said:
must also see Rome" There is such
k thing as Christian curiosity. Paul hs
it and some of us have it. About 9th
peoples business I have no curiosit
10 About all that can confirm my faith
10 the Christian religion and the world
., salvation and the souls future happ
ness, am full of an all absorbing, 0
compelling curiosity. Paul had gre
1t curiosity about the next world, and
u have we. I hope some day, by the gra
u of God, to go over and see for mysel
is but not now. No we'll man, no pro
4. pered man, / think, wants to 60 no
n But the time will come, / think, whel
shall 60 over. / want to see what tn
a, do there, and want to see how they
10 it. I do not want to be looking throu!
W the gates aiar forever. want them
II swing wide open. There are ten tho
ii sand things ] want explained-abo
YOU, about myself, about the cover
ment of this world, about God. abo
everything. We start in plain path
what we know, and in minute come
against high wall of what we do n
IS know. wonder how it looks over the
ii Somebody tells me it is like paw
10 city-paved with gold; and another m
" tells me it is like fountain, and it
y lilo a trnn nnd IL 10 Dka q friumnI