The Forrest City times., 1890-02-22
TIE FIVE FIyCERs
s,v, I. Dewitt Talmag, Dtsc,ur,ss on
 ''The Gloriou, Christ"

cArist tho Overlapping Figure of All
 Tine -1sautifui Significance of werds--
 Tho Love of Christ sst Forth in the rsn-
 ssrsst Phrassoleyy
 At tho Brooklyn Tabernacle on the oth inst, Rev. Talmage preached from the text: ''F4e that cometb from above is above all, '' John iii-31 Dr. Talmage said: The most conspicuous character of history steps out upon the platform. Tho finyer which, diamonded with light pointed down to him from the Bethlehem sky, was only ratification Of the finger of prophecy, tho finger of genealogy, tho finger of chrono- logy, the finger of events --all five fingers pointing in one direction Christ Is the overlapping figure of all time. He is the vox humana in all music, the gracefulest line in all sculpture, the most exquisite mipgling of lights and shades in all paint ing, the acme of all climaxes, the dome of all cathedraled grandeur, and the perora- tion of all spendid language.
 The Greek alphabet is made up of twen- ty-four letters, and when Christ compared himself to the rirst 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. 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and tho end, the first and the last.' Or, if you prefer the words of the text above all"
 What does It meant 1t means, after you havc piled up all Alpine and Himalayan attitudes, the glory of Christ would have 10 spread it's wings and descend a thousand leagues to touch those summits. Pelion, high mountain of Thessaly; Ossa, high mountain, and Olympus, a high mountain; but mythology tells us when the giants warrcd against the Rods 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 tho giants and Paul. prohetic and apos- tolic giants; Raphael and Michael Angelo artistic giants; cherubim and seraphim and archangel, celestial giants-have failed to climb to the top of Christs glory they might all we'll unite in the words of the text and say; "He that cometh from above is above all.n
 First, Christ must be above all else in our preaching There are so many books on homletics scattered through the coun- try that all laymen, as well as all clergy mon, have made up their minds what ser. mons ought to be. That sermon is most cffcctual which most poutedly puts forth Christ as the pardon of all sin and tue cor rection of all cvil--individual, social, po- litical, 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 discourse have frequent mention of justif cation, sanctifcation, covenant of works and covenant of grace, that therefore 1t must be profoundly evangelical, while they arc suspicious of discourse which presents tho same truth, but under different phraseology. Now, I say there is nothing in all tho opulcnt realm of Anglo SaxonisrI, of all tho word treasures that we inherited from th6 Latin and the Greek and the Indo- European, but we have right to marshal 1t in religious discussion Christ sets the example. His illustrations were from the grass, the flowers, tho spittle, tho salve, the barn yard fowl, the crystals Of salt, as we'll 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 tho limits.
 know that therc 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 tho bridge between soul and soul, between
 
 did God write upon tho tables of stonesi Words. What did Christ utter on Mount Oliveti Words. Out of what did Christ strike the spark for the illumination of the universei Out Of words 'Iet there be light' and light was Of course, thought Is the cargo and words are only the ship; but how fast would your cargo get on with out the shipt What you need, my friends. m all your work, in your Sabbath school class in the reformatory institu tions, 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 illimitablc resources Shakespeare employed fifteen thousand different words Tor dramatic purposes; Milton employed e'ght thousand different words for poetic purposes Rufus Choate employed over eleven thousand different words for legal purposes but tue most of us have less than a thousand words that we can man. age, less than five hundred, and that makes us so stupid
 When we come to set forth the love of Christ we are going to take tendcrest phraseology wherever we find it, and if it i'as never been used in that direction before. all the moro shall we use it. When We come 10 speak of the glory of Christ tho Con. queror, we are goiag to draw our smllies from triumphal arch and oratorlo and everything grand and stupendous Tho French navy have eighteen flags by which they ciye signal, but those eighteen flags they can put into sixty-six thousand different combinations. And. I have to tell you that these standards Of the cross may be lifted into combinations inf nte and varieties everlasting. And let me say to these young men who camo from the theological seminaries into our services every Sabbath, and are after while going 10 preach Jesus Christ yoa will have the largest liberty and unlimited resources You only have to present Christ In your own way
 Jonathan Edwards preached Christ in tho severest argument over penned, and John Bunyan preached Christ in the sub finest aliegory ever composed. Edward Fayson, sick and exhausted leaned up against tho side Of the pulpit and wcpt out his discourse. while George Whiteiield. with tho manner and the voice and the start of an actor, overwhelmed his audi. tory It would have been different thing 1T Jonathan Edwards had tried to write and dream about the piigrinis progress to the celestial city, or Joha bunyan had at. tempted an essay on the human will.
 Brighter than the light freshcr than tho fountains, deener than the seas, are ali these Gospel themss. Song has no moloty. flowers have no sweetness, sunset sky has no color compared with these glorious themes. These harvests of grace sprsny up quicker than we can sickle them. Kind. linz pulpits with ther frc, and psoduclnr revolutions with their power. hgh,lng up dying beds with their glory, thas are the sweetest thought for tha mat npi th.v .4r,, the most thrilling illustration Tor tae ora tor, and they oifer the most is,enss scene for the artist, and they ara to the cmbassador of the sky all on. thusiasm. Complete pardon for dircst guilt, Sweetest comfort for ghastlt. est agonics Brightest hope for grimmess death. Graniest resurrection for darkest sepuichers. On, what Gosgel to preachi Christ over all in it. His brtl, his suffer- ing. hls miracles. his rarahies, his sweat, his tears his blooa, his atonenenI his In. tercexsion what glorious thcraaS. Do we exercise faithl Christ is it's object Do Wo have lnvaf h fAstnna au faau. tI.-.