Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-03-13
OVER US ALL.
The Alpha and Omega, the Begin
ming and the End
Christ and His Gospel Should be Para
mount to All EIse-Dr. Talmage's
Sermon.


nounced that he would very soon begin
series of sermons on his journey ITO
and through the Holy Land" The sub
ject of his discourse Sunday morning was
1.-THE Glorious Christ" His text was:
"He that cometh from above is above
all" John Ill, 81. The great preacher
| said:
The most conspicuous character of
history steps out upon the platform.
! The finger which, diamonded with
light, pointed down to Him from the
Bethlehem sky, was only ratification
of the finger of prophecies, the finger of
genealogy, the finger of chronology, the
finger of events-all five fingers point
ing in one direction. Christ is the over
topping figure of all time. He is the
vox humane in all music. the graceful
lest line in all sculpture, the most ex-
ouisite mingling of lights and shades
in all painting, the acme of all climaxes,
the dome of all cathedral grandeur, and
the peraration of all splendid language,
The Greek alphabet is made up of
twenty-four letters, and when Christ
compared himself to the first letter and
the last letter, the Alpha and the One
ga, He appropriated to Himself all the
splendors that you can spell out either
with those two letters and all the let
tiers between them. 81 am the Alpha
and the Omega, the beginning and the
end, the first and the last" Or, If you
prefer the words of the text, "Aboye
all"
What does 1t mean? 1t means, after
you have piled up all Alpine and Hima-
layan attitudes, the glory of Christ
would have to spread its wings and de-
scend thousand leagues to touch those
SUBMITS. Pelion, high mountain Of
! Thessaly; Ossa, high mountain, and
! Olympus. high mountain; but myth
ology tells us when the giants warred
against the gods they piled up these
three mountains, and from the top Of
| them proposed to scale the heavens; but
the height was not great enough, and
there was complete failure. And after
/ all the giants-Isaiah and Paul, prophetic
and apostolic giants; Raphael and
| Michael Angelo, artistic giants, cher
ubim and seraphim and archangel,
celestial giants-have failed to climb TO
the top Of Christ's glory, they might all
we'll unite in the words of the text and
say: "IIe that cometh from above is
above all"
First, Christ must be above all else in
our preaching. There are so many
books on homiletics scattered through
the country that all laymen, as well as
all clergymen, have made up their minds
what sermons ought to be. That sqr-
mon is most effectual which most point
eddy puts forth Christ as the pardon Of
| all sin and the correction Of all evil, in
! dividual, social. political, national.
/ There is no reason why we should ring
| the endless changes on few phrases.
| There are those who think that IL an
! exhortation or a discourse have frequent
mention Of justification, specification,
covenant of works and covenantof grace,
that therefore it must be profoundly
evangelical, while they are suspicious Of
a discourse which presents the same
| truth, but under different phraseology.
/ Now, / say there is nothing in all the
opulent realm of Anglo-Saxoni Of all
the word treasurers that we inherited
| from the Latin and the Greek and the
Indo-European but we have a right TO
marshal it in religious discussion.
| Christ sets the example. His illustra-
tions wore from the grass, the flowers,
the spittle, the salve, the barnyard
fowl, the crystals Of salt as well as from
| the seas and the stars; and we don't
propose in our Sunday-school teaching
and in our pulpit address to be put on
/ the limits.
l know there is great deal said in
our day against words, as though they
were nothing. They may be misused,
but they have an imperial power. They
are the bridge between soul and soul,
between Almighty God and the human
race. What did God write upon the ia
bles Of stones? Words. What did
Christ utter on Mt. olivet2 Words. Out
/ of what did Christ strike the spark for
/ the illumination OF the universe? Out
of words. ''Let there be light" and
I light was. or course, thought is the
cargo, and words are only the ship: but
| how fast would your cargo get on with
out the ship? What you need, my
+ friends, in all your work, in your Sab
/ NAacof IN gONA
institutions, and what we all need is to
enlarge our vocabulary when we come
to speak about God and Christ and
Heaven. We ride few old words to
death when there is such illimitable re-
source. Shakespeare employed $4,000
| different words for dramatic purposes;
Milton employed 5000 different words
for poetic purposes; Rufus Choate en-
| ployed over 1000 different words for
legal purposes, but the most of us have
less than 1000 words that we can man
age, less than 500, and that makes us so
stupid.
When we come to set forth the love of
Christ we are going to take the tender
] est phraseology wherever we find it, and
| IL it has never been used in that direc-
ton before, all the more shall we use it.
When we come to speak Of the glory Of
Christ, the Conqueror, we are going to
draw our SMILES from triumphal arch
and oratorio and everything grand and
/ stupendous. The French NAVY has