Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-12-04
Chrlst's Personality.
NO OTHER GREAT TEACHER HAS HAD so
WIDE AN INFLUENCE ON MANKIND.

NO OTHER GREAT TEACHER HAS HAD so
WIDE AN INFLUENCE ON MANKIND.
The Rev. Moses D. Hoge, of Richmond,
Va, preached before large assemblage of
the Tabernacle congregation at the Brook
Ign Academy of Music Sunday morning,
Nov gath, in the place of Rev. DR.. Tai
mage, who is absent upon visit to the
Holy Land. DR.. Hoge's sermon was upon
the personality of Christ, and his text was
"And voice came out OF the clouds saying
this is my beloved Son ; hear ye Him."
Christ, he said, was the supreme teacher Of
the world. "This is my beloved Son.
that was the Fathers commentator.
CLEAR We Him"-that was the divine dec
laration Of the Importance of Christ's teach
ines to humanity. When we hear Him then
we hear the eternal word made audible.
When we hear Him we hear not only the
messenger of truth, but the Truth itself,
the inearnate Truth that makes us wise for
evermore.
1s'It may all be very well, he said ''to
write a book entitled, Christ and Other
Masters There have been great masters
in the realms of thought, and great leaders
in the field of enterprise;but there has been
but one Christ. No teacher ever announced
truths 60 wide in their grasp, so far reach
ing in their meaning and as time wears
on the evidence is accommodating of the
truth of what one of the great masters ut
tered, that the difference between Christ
and all other religious teachers was the diff
ference of infnity.
"Though the immediate influence which
Christ exerted was confined to small ter
ritory and limited to small number of peo.
gle, yet among the things that Christ crea-
ted is that complex and magnificent thing
we call Christendom; and the Christesdom
that Christ created now contains ell the
progressive nations Of the earth.
It was of this personal Christ the preach
er said that he desired to speak. There
never was time when the attention of
thoughtful men was so much conferred as
now on the person, the character and the
work of Christ, the relation that Christ
bore to His own time, and to all time, and
the influence which Christ has exerted on
the moral and intellectual progress OF man
kind. There is no philosophical historian,
no ethical writer who can leave out that
force in tie enumeration of those forces
which have Influenced tho worlds progress.
ave hear a great deal about humanita-
ranism from men who ignore the Bible !;
about the wonderful things which are going
to be accomplished by the humaniarians of
the age apart from the Bible. There are
men who profess to have discovered or in
vented the principles and institutions for
lifting up humanity. But every one of their
ideas have been borrowed from the Bible.
They have brrrowed the light from that sa-
cred book and then tly to shatter the Ian
tern. These humanitarians are the sons
of men who were oncs the barbarians of
whom Paul speaks, and these degenerate
sons would be in the same condition as
their forefathers if it were not for the Bible,
and it is the enlightenment end develop
ment which the spread of christianity has
carried with il which has put these men in
a position whence they may assaii the b.
ble."