Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-17
ABOVE ALL OTHERS.
A Redeemer Glorifed is the Text of
Rev. DR.. Talmage'S Sermon.
AMAE CONSPICUOUS In HISTORY,
Full Of Good Works and Approved as the
Son of God and Savior.
WORDS, THE BRIDGE BETWEEN SOULS
rsrEc1AL TO THE D1srArcH.l

bhOOhLANs lO.-Ab tue 4dbCI-
nacle this morning, Rev. 7. Dewitt Tai
mage, D. D., preached on ''The Glorious
Christ" His text was. "He that cometh
from above is above ALL" John, iii, 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 a
ratification of the finger of prophecy, the
finger of genealogy, the finger Of chro-
nology, the finger Of events-all five fingers
pointing in one direction. Christ is the
overtopping figure of all time. He is the
vox humans in all music, the gracefulest
line in all sculpture, the most exquisite
mingling of lights and shades in all paint
ing the acme of all climaxes, the dome of
all cathedraled grandeur and the peroration
Of all splendid language.
The Greek alphabet is made up of "a let
ters, and when Christ compared himself to
the first letter and the last letter, the alpha
and the omega, he appropriated to Himself
all the splendors that you can spell out
either with those two letters and all the
letters between them. '1 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 all Alpine and Himalayan
attitudes, the glory of Christ would have to
spread its wings and descend thousand
leagues to touch those SUBMITS. Pelion, a
high mountain of Thcssaly; 0ssa, high
mountain and Olympus, a high mountain;
but mythology tells us when the giants
warred against the gods they piled mp these
three mountains, and from the top OF them
proposed to scale heavens; but the height
was not great enough, and there was a COM
plete failure.
THE BEST CAN LOOK UP TO HIM.
And after all the giants-Isaiah and Paul,
prophetic and apostolic giants; Raphael and
Michael Angelo, artistic giants; cherublm
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: HE 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, IS we'll as all clergymen,
have made up their minds what sermons
ought to be. That sermon is most effectuaI
the pardon of all sin and the correction of all
evil-individual, social, political, national
There is no reason why we should ring the
endless changes on few phrases. There are
those who think that if an exhortation or q
discourse have frequent mention of justi-
hcation, sanctlhcation, covenant of works
and covenant of grace, that, therefore, it
must be profoundly evangelical, while thev
are suspicious of a discourse which presents
the same truth, but under different phrase
ology Now, 1 say there is nothing 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 a right to marshal it
in religious discussion. Christ sets the ex-
ample. His illustrations were 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 do
not propose in our Sabbath school teaching
and in our pulpit address to be put on the
limits.
THE POWER OF WORDS.
know that 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 Al
mighty God and the human race. What
Words What did Christ utter on Mount
Olivet? Words. Out of what did Christ
strike the spark for the illumination of the
universe? Out OF words. "Let there be
light" and light was. OF course, thought
is the cargo and words are only the ship;
but how last would your cargo get on with
out the ship? What YOU need, my friends,
in all your work, in your Sabbath school
class, in your reformatory institutions, and
what we all need is to enlarge our vocabu-
larry when we come to speak about God and
Christ and heaven. We ride a few old
words to death when there is such illimitable
resource. Shakespeare employed $4,000 dil-
ferent words for dramatic purposes; Milton
employed 5000 different words for poetic
purposes; RUFUS Choate employed over H.
900 different words for legal purposes; but
the most of us have less than 1000 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 phras-
eology wherever we fnd 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 tri-
umphal arch and oratorio and everything
grand and stupendous.
AN IHFINITY OF COMBINATIONS.
The French navy have Is flags by which
they give signal, but those Is flags they can
put into &c, 600 different combinations. And
have to tell you that these standards of the
cross may be lifted into combinations infn-
lite and varieties everlasting. And let me
say to these young men who come from the
theological seminaries into our services
every Sabbath. and are after a while going
IN L.
largest liberty and unlimited resource. You
only have to present Christ in your own
way.
Jonathan Edwards preached Christ in the |
severest argument ever penned, and John |
Buuyan preached Christ in the sublimest
allegory ever composed. Edward Paysou.
sick and exhausted, leaned I'D against the |
side of the pulpit and wept out his discourse.
while George Whiteheld, with the manner |
and the voice and the start OF an actor, over |
whelmed his auditory. 1t would have been
a different thing il Jonathan Edwards had |
tried 70 write and dream about the pilgrims |
progress to the celestial city, or John Bun
van had attempted an essay on the human |
will.
Brighter than the light, fresher than the
fountains, deeper than the seas, are all these
gospel themes. Song has no melody. flowers |
have no sweetness, sunset sky has no color |
compared with these glorious themes These |
harvests of grace spring up quicker than we |
can sickle them. Kindling pulpits with |
their fire, Snd producing revolutions with |
their power, lighting up dying beds with |
their glory, they are the sweetest thought |
for the poet, and they are the most thrilling |
illustration for the orator, and they offer the |
most intense scene for tine artist, and they |
are to the ambassador of the sky all enthusi- |
asm. Complete pardon for direst guilt. |