Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-12
HE ASCENSION.
Discourse Of Rev. DR.. Talmage in
the City of Brooklyn.
The Triumphal Entrance of Christ
Into Heaven After His Victory
Over Sin, Death and He'll.
Lift Up Your Heads, Oh Ye Gates; and Be Ys
Lifted Up, Ye Everlasting Doors; and
the King of Glory Shall Come In.
Special to the Gazette.

Special to the Gazette.
BROOKLYN, N. Y, May IL. After
reading appropriate passages of Scrip
ture, and the usual prayers and musical
exercises, DR.. Talmage preached the fol-
lowing sermon, in the Academy of Music,
this morning, from the words: "Lift up
your heads, ye gates; and be ye lifted
up, ye everlasting doors; and the King OF
glory shall come in. - Psalms xiv. 4.
In olden times when q great conqueror
returned from victorious war, the people
IN wild transport would take hold of the
gates of the city and lift. them from their
hinges, as much as to say: 'This city
needs no more gates to defend it since
this conqueror has got home. OFF from
the hinges with the gates!" David who
was the poet of poets, foretells in his own
way the triumphal entrance of Christ
into heaven, after His victory over sin
and death and hell. 1t was as If the
celestial inhabitants had said: ''Here
lie comesl Make way for Himl Push
back the bolts of diamond! Take hold
of the doors of pearl and hoist them from
their hinges of gold! Lift up your heads,
Q ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye ever
lasting doors; and the King of Glory
shall come in. -
Among the mountains of Palestine no
one is more uplifting than Mount Olivet.
1t was the peroration of our Lord g
ministry. On the roof of a house in
Jerusalem l asked, (Which is Olivet?''
and the first glance transfixed me. But
how shall describe my emotions, when,
near the close of journey, for which
we had for two nights encamped amid
the shattered masonry of old Jericho,
and tasted of the acid waters of the Dead
sea, that crystal sarcophagus of the
buried cities of the plain, and waded
down into the deep and swift Jordan to
sbaptize a man, and visited the ruins of
ethe house of Mary and Martha and
Lazarus, we found ourselves in stirrUps
and on horse, lathered with the long and
difficult way, ascending Mount OliVet.
Oh, that solemn and suggestive ridgei
1t is limestone hill, a mile in length,
and 300 feet high, and 200 feet above
the level of the sea. Over it King David
fled with broken heart. Over it Pom
peFsied his devastating hosts. Here the
famous Tenth legion built their batteries
IN besiegemenr. The garden of Goth
semane weeps at the foot of it. Along
the base of this hill flashed the torches
of those who came to arrest Jesus. From
the trees on this hill the bonghs were
torn off and thrown into the patch of
CHRIsT's TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION.
Up and down the road Jesus had
walked twice day from Bethany to
Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to
Bethany. There, again and again, He
had taught mis- disciples. Half way up
this mount He uttered His lamentation.
HOh Jerusalem, Jerusalem!' From
the heights Jesus took flight homeward
when He had finished His earthly mis-
sion. There is nothing more for him to
do. A sacrifice was needed to make
peace between the recTeant earth and
the outraged heaven, and He offered it.
Death needed to be conquered, and He
had put His resurrection foot upon it.
The thirty three years of voluntary exile,
had ended. The grandest, tenderest,
migbtiest goodbye ever heard was now
to be uttered.
On Mount Olivet Jesus stands in a
group of Galllee fishermen. They had
been together in many scenes of sadness
ana persecution and had been the more
endeared by that brotherhood of suffer-
ing. They had expected Him to say
until the day of coronation when He
would take the earth throne and wave
scepter mightier, and rule a dominion
wider, than any Pharaoh, than any
David, than any Caesar. But now all
these anticlpations collapse. Christ has
given His last advice. He has offered
His last sympathy. He has spoken His
last word. His hands are spread apart
as one is apt to do when he pronounces a
benedictIon, when suddenly the strongest
and most stupendous law of all worlds is
shattered. 1t is the law which, since
the worlds were created, holds
them together It is the law
which holds everything to the earth or,
temporarily hurled from earth, returns
it; the law which keeps the planets
whirling around our sun, and our solar
system whirling around other systems,
and all the systems whirling around the
throne of God-the law of gravitation.
That law is suspended, OF relaxed, or
broken, to let the body of Jesus go.
That law had laid hold of him thirty
three years before, when He descended.
1t had relaxed its grip of Him but once,
and that when it declined to sink Him
from the top of the waves on Lake Cali
lee, on which He walked, to the bottom
of the lake. That law of gravitation
LuuSL HOh give Hdy W linn VIM nhOC
the law. It may hold the other
stars, but it cannot longer
hold the Morning Star of the Re-
demption. 1t may hold the MONDAY
sun, but it cannot hold the Sun of Right
eousness, The fingers of the law are
about to open to let go the most Illus
trious Being the world had ever seen,
and whom it had worse maltreated. The
strongest law of nature, which 2fh..!!os-
ophers ever weighed or measured must
at last give way. II will break between
the rock of Olivet and the heel OF
Christ's foot Watch it, al ye disci-
pies. Watch it, ali the Garth.
WATCH IT, ALL THE HEAVENS.
Christ about to leave this planet.
How? His friends will not consent to
have Him go. His enemies catching
Him would only attempt by another Cal
vary to put Him into some other tomb.
l will tell you how. The chain of the
most tremendous natural law is I'M
linked. The sacred foot Of our Lord
and the limestone rock part, and part
forever.
Leaning back, and with psllid cheek