News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-01-09
STANDING IN SACRED PLACES
DR.. Talmage's Christmas Eve In the
Holy Land.
The Surroundings Suggest the Text OF
Discourse, ''The Sky Anthem"-Lessohs
Taught from the Life of Chr1st-1he
Saviour's Mission in the World.

BEYRoUT, Dec "a, 1889. Rev. I. DeWltt
Talmage, D. D., of Brooklyn, who is mere
with his party, preached today to group Oh
friends on 1.-The Sky Anthem" HIS TEX was
Luke IL, IA: ''Gory to God in the hlghest,
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 tlIne
of year that Christ landed. lie was DG-
cember Christ. This is the chill air through
which he descended. 1 look up through these
Christmas skies and | see no loosehe1 . Stai
fastening southwark to halt above bethee
hem, but all the stars suggest the s'ar VI
Bethlehem.
No more need that any of them run along
the sky to point downward. In quietuue
they kneel at the feet of him who, though
once an exile. is now enthroned forever.
Fresh up from Bethlehem, L am 1ull OF Tue
scenes suggested by visit to that Vlllage'
You know that whole region OF Bethlehem Is
famous in Bible story. There were the waving
haryests of Boaz, in which RUIN gleaneu ior
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 1t was
to that region that Joseph and Mary came 10
have their names enrolled in the census. IhaC
is what the scripture means when IL says
they came ''to be taxed" for people ana
not in those days rush after the assessors
of tax any more than they now 90. 49,
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 nave
| seen some of those large stone buildings III
the centre of which the camels were kept,
| while running out froIa4llE~eentre IN all d.
| rections there were rooms, III One or which
| Jesus was born. Had bis parents been more
showily appareIled / 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 1locks, when bark 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 stools upon them like the
| morning, so that the focks arise, shaking
their snowy fleece and beating to their
drowsy young. The heavens are filled with
armies of light and tie earthquakes under
the harmony, as echoed back from cloud to
cloud, it rings over themidnight hills: "Glory
to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good will to menI" Itseems that the crown
of royalty and dominion and power which
Christ left behind him vas hung on the sky in
sight of Bethlehem. Who knows but that
the crown may have Keen mistaken by the
wise men for the star running and pointing
downward?
NV subject. in the frs place. impresses me
with the fact that indulgence is not always
significant of degradation. When princes
are born, heralds announce it, and cannon
thunder it, and flags wive it, and illumina-
lions set cities on fire with the tidings. Some
of us i'll England or America remember the
time of rejoicing when the Prince of Wales
was born. You can remember the gladness
throughout ChristendOn 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 Christmas
shows the truth of the proposition that indi-
gence is not always significant of degrade
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
that have been the joy of the heavenly no st.
All the great delverers of literature and of
nations W ere born in homes without affl u
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 knowE
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
ODscure CORNERS, anu Hdu heTOuS WHO WdHL-
ed to STAY them, and Iscariots who betrayed
them, and rabies that crucifed them, and
sepulchres that confued 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, 10Th all the more for
being failed. Some of this most useful peo-
pie would never haze come to 99Siti8nsa ami, nj
pounded, and hammered in the foundry of
disaster. When 1 see Moses coming up from
the ark of bulrushes to be the greatest lawgi ,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 kings sceptre, and Peter
from the fishing net to be tie great preach
at the PentecOst, l find proof of the truth
of my proposition that Indulgence is not al
WAYS significant of degradation.
My subject also impresses me with the
thought that it is while at our useful occupa-
tons that we have the divine manifestations.
Had those shepherds gone that night into
Bethlehem and risked their flocks among the
wolves, they would not have heard 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:
eff L had a mouth or year or two to do |
nothing but attend to religious things, I |
would be a great deal better than I am now.o |
You are mistaken; Generally the best people |
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 their
nets when Christ called them to be fishers of |
men. Had they been snoring in the sun
Christ would not have called their Incidence
into the aposteship. Gideon was at work
with fail on the threshing floor when he |
saw the angel. Saul was with great fatigue
hunting up the lost asses when he found the
crown of Israel.
The prodgal son would never have re-
formed and wanted to have returned to his
fathers house if he had not first gone into
business, though it was swine feeding. Not
once out of hundred times Will lazy man
become Christian. Those who have moth
ing to do are in very unfavorable circum-
stances for the receiving of divine manifesto
tions. 1t is not when you are in idleness, but
when YOU are, like the Bethlehem shepherds,
watching your fiocks, that the glory descends
and there Is jov among the angels of God
over your soul penitent and forgiven.
NV subject also strikes at the delusion that
the religion of Christ is dolOrous and grief in
fusing. The music that broke through the
heavens was not d1rge, but an an
them. 1t shook Joy over the hills. 1t not only
dropped upon the shepherds, but it sprang
-
Saviour's righteousness is not black. The
Christian life is not made up of weeping and
cross bearing and war waging. Through the
revelation of that Christmas night l find that
religion is not groan, but song. In world
of sin and sick bed and sepulchres, we must
have trouble; but In the darkest night
the heavens part with angelic song.
You may, like PanL-ae~ s.hipEyrecked, but |
exhort you to be of good eheers for you shall
all escape safe to the land. Religion does
not show itself in the elongation OF the face
and the cut of the garb. The Pharisee who
puts his religion into his phylactery, has
none left for his heart.
Fretfulness and complaining do not be-
long to the family of Christian graces which
move into the heart when the devil moves
out. Christianity does not frown upon
and recreations. 1t is not
cynic, it is not shrew, it chokes no laughter,
it quenches no light, it defaces no art.
Among the happy, it is the happfest. 1t is
just as much at home on the play ground as
it is in the church. 1t is just as graceful in
the charade as it is in the psalm book. 1t
sings just as well in merry gardens as 1t prays
in st. PauPs. Christ died that we might
live. Christ walked that we might ride.
Christ wept that we might laugh.
Again, my subject impresses me with the
fact that glorious BINDINGS sometimes have
very humble beginnings. The straw pallet
was the starting point, but the shout In the
sky revealed what would be the
lap Christ on the throne of universal domn-
ion-what an humble starting! What
glorious ending! Grace begins on small
scale in the heart. You see onlym men as trees
walking. The grace of god in the heart is
feeble sparkle and Christ has TO keep both