News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-05-15
THE LORD is RISEN!
A WONDERFUL SERMON ON THE
ASCENSION BY Or. TALMAGE.

The Power of Prayer-On Mount Olivet
BROOKLYN, May 11.-After reading
appropriate passages of ScriptsEe, and
the usual prayers and musical eXer
cises, Dr. Talmage preached the fol
| lowing sermon in the Academy OF
Music this morning from the words,
Lift up your heads, o We gates; and
be We lifted up, ye everlasting doors
and the King of Glory shall come IN.
Ps. xiv, Z.
In olden times when a great con
queror 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 cot home. Off from the hinges
with the gatesm 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 celes-
tial inhabitants had said: Here he
comes! Make way for him! 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, 0 we gates; and be We
lifted up, We everlasting doors; and
the King of Glory shall come in"
MOUNT OLIvET.
Among the mountains of Palestine
no one is more uplifting than Mount
Olivet. 1t was the peroration of our
Lords ministry. On the roof of a
house in Jerusalem l asked, (which
is OIivet2" and the first glance trans
fixed me- But how shall [ describe
nv emotions, when. near the close of
a Journey, in which we had for two
nights encamped amid the shattered
masonry of old Jericho, and tasted of
the aclid waters OF the Dead Sea, that
crystal sarcophagus of the buried cities
of the plain, and waded down into the
deep and swift Jordon to baptize a
man, and visited the ruins of the
Iouse of Mary and Martha and Laza-
rs, we found ourselves in stirrups
nd on horse, athered with the long
I'd difficult way. ascending Mount
JIivet. Oh, that solemn and sugges-
tive ridge! 1t is a limestone hill,
mile in length, and three hundred feet
high, and twenty-seven hundred feet
above the level of the sea.
Over it King David fled with
broken heart Over ii Pompey led his
devastating hosts. Here the famous
Tenth Legion built their batteries in
besiegement. The Garden of Gethse-
name weeps at the foot of it. Along
the base of she hill flashed the lanterns
and torches of those who came to ar
rest Jesus From the trees on this hill
the boughs were torn off and thrown
into the path of Christ's triumphal
procession. Up and down that road
Jesus had walked twice a day from
Bethany to Jerusalem, and from Jeru-
salem to Bethany. There, again and
again, he had taught his disciples.
Half way up this mount he uttered his
lamentation, 20 Jerusalem, Jerusa-
lemr From its heights Jesus. took
fight homeward when he had finished
his earthly mission. There is nothing
more for him to do. A sacrifice was
needed to make peace between the rec
reant earth and the outraged heaven,
and he had 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 might
lest Good-by ever heard was now to
be uttered
NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE.
On Mount Olivet Jesus stands in a
group of Galilee fishermen. They had
been together in many scenes of sad
ness and persecution and had been the
more endeared by that brotherhood of
suffering. They had expected him to
stay until the day of coronation when
he would take the earthly throne and
wave a scepter mightier, and rule
dominion wider, than any Pharaoh,
than any David, than any Caesar. But
now all these anticipations 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 stu
pendous law of all worlds is shattered. |
1t is the law which, since the worlds |
were created, holds them together. 1t |
is the law which holds everything to
,l,a rt1, ~, tap,,,r, ~ - b,rIoJ fro,,,
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
around the throne of God
the law of gravitation That law is
or 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 re-
Taxed its grip of him but once and
that when it declined to sink him
from the top of the waves on Lake
on which he walked, to the
bottom of the lake. That law of gravi-
tation must now give way to him who
made the law. 1t may hold the other
stars, but it cannot longer hold the
Star of the Redemption 1t
may hold the MONDAY sun, but it can
not hold the Sun of Righteousness.
The fingers of the law are about to
open to let 90 the most illustrious Be
ing the world / ad ever seen, and
whom it had worst maltreated. The
strongest law of nature which philoso-
piers ever weighed or measured must
It last give way. 1t will break be-
ween the rock of Olivet and the heel
If Christ's foot Watch it, all we dis
,iples Watch it, all the earth Watch
t, all the heavens! Christ about to
cave the planet. Howe His friends
will not consent to have him go. His
,nemies catching him would only
lttempt by another Calvary, to put
lim into some other tomb | will
ell you how. The chain of the most
natural law is III linked
The sacred foot of our Lord and the
limestone rock part, and part forever
CHRIST's ASCENSION TO HEAVEN.
Leaning back, and with pallid cheek
md uplifted eyes, the disciples see
heir Lord rising from the solid earth.
Then, rushing forward, they would
grasp his feet 70 hold him fast, but
hey are out of reach and it is too late
o detain him Higher than the tops
If the fig trees from which they had
)lucked the fruit Higher than the