Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-12-29
CHRISTMAS SERMON
An Appropriate Discourse Yes
terday by Rev. DR.. Talmage.
He Takes for His Subject the "ChriSt-
mas Jubilee" and Is Heard BY
an Enormous Audience
The Beautiful Story Of Chrisfs Birth and It
Celebration Ratoid by Brooklyn's
Famous Divine.
Special TO the Gazette

BROOKLYN, n. y, Dec. 25.-Dr. Tai
mage's sermon to-day was appropriate
20 the season. It's subject was the
Christmas Jubilee. a crowd, which
filed the academy Of music in every
part, listened 10 1t in the morning and
another enormous audience thronsed the
New York academy of music TO hear 1t
tn the evening, when the doctor preached
under the auspices OF the Christian Her
ali. lis text was Luxe 2: 10, Let US
now go even unto Bethlehem.
Amid "A thousand mercles We give each
other holiday congratulations. By long
established custom we exhort each othe r
10 beautiful merrment. By GIFT, by
Christmas trees which blossom and fruit
in one night, by earIy morning surprise,
10y clusters of lighted candles, by chill
dren's procession, by sound of instru-
ments sometimes more blatant than
musical, We wake up the night and pro-
long the day. 1 wish you all in the
grandest, noblest and best sense, q
merry Christmas. The event comment
GRATED Is the Gladdest of the centuries.
CHRIST 8 CRADLE
was as wonderful as his cross. Persuade
me of the first and am not surprised at
the last. The door by which he entered
was as tremendous as the door by which
He went out.
was last winter at the house where
Jesus lived while he was in Africa. 1t
was in Cniro. Egypt, the terminus of
that terrible journey which he took when
Joseph and Mary fed with him from
Bethlehem TO Egypt 10 escape the mas
sacre of Herod. All tradition as well as
all history point out this house in Cairo
as the one in which these three fugitives
lived while IN Africa. The room is nine
steps down from the level of the street.
/ measured the room and foun 1t twenty
feet long and seven and a half feet high.
There nre three shelviuRs of rock one of
which think was the cradle of our
Lord. There is no window, and sll the
light must have come from lantern or
candle. The three arrived here from
Bethlehem, having crossed the awful
desert.
on the Mediterranean steamer going
from Athens TO Alexandria l met the
eminent scholar and theologlau, DR..
Lansing, who for thrty-fiye years has
been resident of Cairo, and he told me
that he had been all over the road that
the three fugitives took from Bethlehem
10 Egypt. He says II is q desert way
and that the forced journey of the infant
Christ must have been
TERRIBLE JOURNEY.
Going up from Egypt, DIR. Lansing met
people from Bethlehem, their tongues
swollen and hanging out from the in
Examination Of thirst, and although his
party had but one goat skin of water
N,T for
selves, he was so moved with the spec
tacle OF thirst in these poor pill
grims that, though it excited the indig-
nation of his fellow travellers, he gave
water to the strangers. Over this
dreadful route Joseph and Mary started
for this land OF Egypt. No time to
mnke much preparation. HerOd WAS
after them, and what were these peas
ants before an irute king! Joseph, the
husband and father, one night sprang
up from his mattress in great alarm The
beads of sweat OH his forehead, aud his
whole frame quaking. He had
dreamed of massHcres of his wife
and babe. They must he off that night,
right away. Mary put up few
things hastily, and Joseph brought to
the door the beast of burden, aud helped
his wife and child to mount. Why,
those loaves OF bread are not enough,
those bottles of water Will not last for
such a long way. But there is no time
TO get any more. Out aud on. Good bye
TO the dear home they expect never again
to see. Their heurts break. 1t does not
need that ours he IL big house in order to
make us sorry TO leave it.
OVER THE HILLS
and down through the deep gorge they
urge their way. By Hebron, by Gaza,
through hot sand. under blisteriug
sun, the babe crying the mother faint,
the father exhausted. How slowly the
days and weeks pass! WIN the weary
three ever reach the banks of the Nile? |
VIII they ever see Cairo? VIII the desert |
ever end? when at last they cross the |
line beyond which old Herod has no
right TO pursue, their joy is unbounded.
Free at last. Let them dismount and |
rest. Now they resume their way with |
less anxiety. They will find a place
somewhere for shelter and the earning |
of their bread. Here they are At Cairo, |
Egypt.
They wind through the crooked streets
which are about ten feet wide, and enter |
the humble house where ! have been to-
day. But The terminus OF the Journey |
OF these three fugitives was not us
humble as their starting point at Bethle-
hem. Ii that journey across the desert
ended in Il cellar it started from barn.
In and around that barn in Bethlehem
we tarry to-day.
Everything humble around the barn
but everything glorious overhead.
Christ's advent was in the hostery called
the house OF Chin Ham; the night with
finger pointing down to the
place; the door of heaven set wide open
to look out; from orchestral batons of
light dripping the oratorios OF the Mes
siah; on lowest doorstep of heaven the
III insirels of God discourslug OF
GLORY AND GOOD WILL.
soon after the white bearded astrolo-
gists kueel, and from leathern pouch
chink the shekeis, and from open SACKS
exhale the frankincense and rustic out
the bundles of myrrh. The loosened
star; the escaped doxology of celestials;
the chill Decem Der nigh, stiush with May
morn; our world q lost star, and an
other star rushing down the sky that
night to beckou the wanderer home
again, shall yet make all nations keep
Are tl.ere no new lessons from the
story not yet hackneyed by Oft repeatal?
On, yes. Know in the first place, it was