Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-02-27
THE n6beRI0US CHRIST.
DR.. Talmage on the Greatness of
the Saviour.
Above All on Earth and In Heayen-The
Best of Language Requisite in Portray
ing Ills Goodaess-The Christians
Final Triumph. -

In 4 recent sermon at Brooklyn Rev.
7. Dewitt Talmage preached on ''The
GlcriQps Christ" His text was: ''He
that cOmeth from above is above all "
John iii.8ls The great preacher said:
The mostconspieuous character of his
tory steps out upon the platform. The
finger which, diamonded with light,
pointed down to him from the Bethle-
hem sky. was only a ratification of the
prophecy the finger of genealogy, the
finger of chronology, the finger of
events-al five fingers pointing in one
direc5.en, Christ is the overlapping
figure OF all time. He is the vox hu-
manain all music, the gracefulest line
in al sculpture, the most exquisite
mingiiEg of lights and shades in all
painting, the acme of all climaxes, the
dome-ef all cathedral grandeur and the
peroratiOn Of all splendid language.
The Greek alphabet is composed of
twenty-four letters, and when Christ
compared himself to the first letter and
the last letter, the alpha and the omega,
he appropriated to himself all the
spicndcr that you can spell out either
with those two letters, and all the let
tors 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 'above
all"
What does it mean? 1t means after
you have piled up Alpine and Himalay
an attitudes, the glory of Christ would
have 70 spread its wings and descend
thousand leagues to touch those sum-
mits. Pelion, high mountain of Thes-
sally; 0ssa, a high mountain. and Olym-
pus. a high mountain; but mythology
tells rs that 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 tie giants-Isaiah and Paul, prophet
ic and apostolic giants; Raphael and
Michael Angelo, artistic giants; cheru-
BIN, seraphim' and archangel, celestial
giants-have failed to climb to the top
Of Christ's glory they might all well
unite in the words of the text and say:
Gle that cometh from above is above
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 we'll as
clergymen, have made up their minds
what sermons ought to be. That sermon
is most. eEectual which most pointedly
puts forth Christ as the pardon of ali sin
and the correction of all evil-individu-
al social, political, national. There is no
reason why we should ring the endless
changes On a few phrases. There are
these who think that if an exhortation
or discourse have frequent mention of
justification, sanctifcation, covenant of
works and covenant of grace, that
therefore it must be profoundly
evangelical, while they are sus-
picious of a discourse which presents
the same truth but under different
phraseolcgy. Now, l say there is Hoth-
ing in all the opulent realm of Anglo
Saxonism, of all the word treasures that
we Inherited from the Latin and the
Greek and the Indo-European, but we
have right to marshal it in religious
discussion. Christ sets the example.
His illustrations were from the grass,
the flowers, the spittle, the salve, the
barn-yard fowl, the crystals of salt, as
well as from the seas and the stars and
we do not propose in our Sunday school
teaching and in our pulpit address to be
put on the limits.
know that there is a great deal said
in our day against words, as though
they were nothing. They may be mis-
used, 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 tables of stones? Words. What did
Christ utter on Mount Olivet? Words.
Out of what did Christ strike the spark
for the illumination of the universe?
Out ofwords. Let there be light" and
light was. OF course, thought is the
cargo and words are only the ship; but |
how fast would our cargo get on without
the ship? What you need, my friends, |
in all your work, in your Sabbath school |
class, in the reformatory institutions,
and what we all need is to enlarge our |
vocabulary when we come to speak |
about God and Christ and Heaven. We |
ride q few old words to death when there |
is such illimitable resources Shakes
peare employed 5000 different words |
for dramatic purposes, Milton employed |
5000 different words for poetic purposes,
Rufus Choate employed over Il, 900 diff
ferent words for legal purposes but the /
most of US have less than 1,OO0 words
that we can manage, less than 500, and |
that makes US so stupid.
When we come to set forth the love of
Christ we are going to take tenderest |
phraseology wherever we find it, and if |
it has never been used in that direction
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 every thing grand and
The French navy have
eighteen flags by which they give sig
nal, but those eighteen flags they can
put into $4,000 different combinations.
And have to tell you that these stand
ards of the cross may be lifted into COM
binations infinite and varieties everlast-
ing. And let me say to these young
men who come from the theological
senli1aries into our services every Sab
bath, and are after awhile going to
preach Jesns Christ, you-Wil have the
largest liberty and unlimited resources.
You only have to present Christ in your
own way.
Jonathan Edwards preached Christ in
the severest argument ever penned and
John Bunyan preached Christ in the