Connecticut western news., 1890-01-01
STANDING IN SACRED PLACES
Dr. Talmage's Christmas Eve in the
 Holy Land.

Holy Land.
 The Surroundings Suggest the Text of a
 Taught from the Life of Christ-The
 saviour's Mission in the World.
 BEYRoUT, Dec "A, 1889. Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., of Brooklyn, who is here with bis party, preached today to T group of friends on s'The Sky Anthem.'' His text was Luke it., 14: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men," on which he delivered the following dis course:
 At last have what longed for, Christ mas eve in the Holy Land This is the time of year that Christ landed. He was De- cember Christ. This is the chill air through which he descended. look up through these Christmas skies and see no loosened star hastening southward to halt above Bethle- hem, but all the stars suggest the star of ,Rethlehem.
 No more need that any of them run along the sky to point downward. In quietude they kneel at the feet of him who, though Fresh up from Bethlehem, am full of the scenes suggested by visit to that village. You know that whole region of Bethlehem is famous ill Bible story. There were the waving harvests of Boaz, in which Ruth gleaned for herself and weeping Naomi. There David, the warrior, was thirsty, and three men of unheard-of self-denial broke through the Philistine army to get him drink. It was to that region that Joseph and Mary came to have their names enrolled in the census. That is what the scripture means when it says they came ''to be taxed" for people did not in those days rush after the assessors of tax any more than they now do.
 The village inn was crowded with the strangers who had come up by the command of government to have their names in the census, so that Joseph and Mary were obliged to lodge in the stables. You have seen some of those large stone buildings in the centre of which the camels were kept, while running out from this centre in all di- rections there were rooms, in oneof which Jesus was born. Had his parents been more showily apparelled I have no doubt they would have found more comfortable enter tainment. That night in the fields the shep- herds, with crook and kindled fires. were watching their f1ocks, when hark to the sound Of voices strangely sweet. Can it be that the maidens of Bethlehem have come out to serenade the weary shepherds.
 But now light stoops upon them like the morning, so that the focks arise, shaking drowsy young. The heavens are filled with armies of light, and the earthquakes under the harmony, as, echoed back from cloud to cloul, it rings over the midnight hills: 'GIory l tO.UOO HI CuC uISncSV, dnU on cdFJu peace, good will to men!'' It seems that the crown of royalty and dominion and power which Christ left behind him was hung on the sky in sight of Bethlehem. Who knows but that | the crown may have been mistaken by the wise men for the star running and pointing | downward?
 l My subject, in the first place, impresses me with the fact that indulgence is not always significant of degradation. When princes are born, heralds announce it. and cannon thunder 1t, and flags wave it, and illumna- tions set cities on fire with the tidings. Some of us in England or America remember the l time of rejoicing when the Prince of Wales was born. You can remember the gladness throughout Christendom at the nativity in the palace at Madrid. But when our glo- rious Prince was born, there was no rejoicing on earth. Poor and growing poorer, yet the heavenly recognition that Christmas night shows the truth of the proposition that indi- l gence Is not always significant of degrada- l ton.
 In all ages there have been great hearts throbbing under rags, tender sympathies under rough exterior, gold in the quartz, Parian marble in the quarry, and in every stable of privation wonders of excellence 1 that have been the joy of the heavenly host | All the great deliverers of literature and of nations were born in homes without atflu- ence, and from their own privation learned to speak and fight for the oppressed. Many a man has held up his pine knot light from the wilderness until all nations and genera tions have seen it, and off of his hard crust of penury has broken the bread of knowl- edge and religion for the starving millions of the race. Poetry, and science, and literature, and commerce, and laws, and constitutions, and liberty, like Christ, were born in a manager. All the great thoughts which have decided the destiny of nations started in obscure corners, and had Herods who want ed to slay them, and Iscariots who betrayed them, and rabbles that cruciied them, and sepulchres that confined them until they burst forth in glorious resurrection. Strong character, like the rhododendron, is an alpine plant, that grows fastest in the storm.
 | Men are like wheat, worth all the more for being Hailed. Some of the most useful peo- pie would never have come to positions of usefulness had they not been ground, and pounded, and hammered in the foundry of disaster. When see Moses coming up from the ark of bulrushes to be the greatest iawgi 'er of the ages, and Amos from tending the herds to make Israel tremble with his proph- ecies, and David from the sheepcote to sway the poets pen and the king's sceptre, ,and Peter from the fishing net to be tLe great preach CT at the Pentecost, I find proof of the truth of my proposition that indigence is not al- ways significant of degradation.
 My subject also impresses me with the thought that 1t is while at our useful occupa- tions that we have the divine manifestations. Had those shepherds gone that night into Bethlehem and risked their tlocks among the | "OlfeS, they WOuIu not nave neaTu the song of the angels. In other words, that man sees most of God and Heaven who minds his own business. We all have our posts of duty, and, standing there, God appears to us. | We are all shepherds or shepherdesses, and we have our flocks of cares and annoyances and anxieties, and we must tend them.
 We sometimes hear very good people say ''If had month or year or two to dc nothing but attend to religious things, would be great deal better than am now. , are the busy people. Elisha was blowing in the field when the prophetic mantle fell on him. Matthew was attending to his custom house duties when Christ commanded him to follow. James and John were mending theil nets when Christ called them to be fishers o1 men. Had they been snoring in the sun Christ would not have called their indolenct into the apostleship. Gideon was nt work with fail on the threshing floor when ht saw the angel. Saul was with great fatigue hunting up the lost asses when he found tho crown of Israel.
 The prodigal son would never have re formed and wanted to have returned to his fathers house if he had not first gone into business, though 1t was swin feeding. No1 once out of hundred times will lazy mar become a Christian. Those who have noth ing to do are in very unfavorablc circum stances for the receiving of divine manifesto. tions. It is not when you are in idleness, but when you are, like the Bethlehem shepherds watching your focks, that the glory descend. and there is joy among the angels of Goo over your soul penitent and forgiven.
 My subject also strikes at the delusion that the religion of Christ is dolorous and grief in fusng. The music that broke through tht midnight heavens was not dirge, but an an them. It shook joy over the hills. It.not only dropped upon the shepherds, but it sprane upward among the thrones. The robe of Saviour's righteousness is not black. Int Christian life is not made up of weeping ant cross bearing and war waging. Through tht 1 reYelatiOn of that Christmas night find tha