The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1890-03-06
ALPHA AND OMEGA.
THE MOST CONSPICUOUS CuARAC.
TER OF HISTORY.


Witt Ta;mage, d. D., preached on "Th'
Glorious Christ" His text was: "H'
that cOmeth from above is above all."-
John iii, 81. The preacher said:
The most conspicuous character OF
history steps out upon the platform.
The finger which, diamonded with light,
pointed down to him from tho Bethle
hem sky, was only ratification Of the
hngcr Of prophecy, the finger OF gene
alogy, the finger of chronology, the fin
ger of cvents-all.fve fingers pointed in
a one direction. Christ IS the overtop-
Ding figure of all time. He is the vox-
iumana in all music, the gracofulest line
ia all sculpture, the most exquisite ming
Ing OF lights and shades in all paint
'ngs, the acme of all climaxes, the dome
OF all cathedral grandeur, and the pero-
ration Of all splendid language.
The Greek alphabet is made up of
twenty-fonr letters, and when Christ
compared himself to te first letter and
the last letter, the alpha and the omega,
he appropriated to himself all the splcn-
dors that you can spell out either with
those two letters or all the letters be-
tween them. II am the Alpha and the
Omega, the beginning and the end,
the first and the last" Or, if you pre-
fer the words, of the text, "above ALL"
What does it mean2 1t means after
you have piled up all Alpine md Him
alayan attitudes, the glory of Christ
would have to spread its wings and de-
scehd thousand leagues to touch those
submits. Pelion, high mountain, of
Thessa.y; Ossa, high mountain, and
Olympus, high mountain; but mythol-
ogy tells US when the giants warred
against the gods they piled up these
three mountains, and from the top of
them proposed to scale the heavens;
but tho height was not great enough,
and thdto was complete failure. Aud
after all the giants--Isaiah and Paul,
prophetic and apostolic giants; Raphael
and Slichael Angelo, artistic giants;
chcrubim and seraphim and Grchangels
celestial giants-have failed to climb to
the top CT Christ's glory. They might all
we'll unite in the words of he text and
say: "Hc that Cometh from above is
above all"
First, Christ must be above all else In
our preaching. There are 80 many
books on hOmiletics scattered through
the country that all laymen, as we'll as
oil ticrgymcn, have made up their mia is
what sermons ought to be. That ser.
mon is most effectual which most peint-
edly puts forth Christ as the pardon of
all sin and the correction of all evil--in-
diviuual, social, political and national.
There is no reason why we should ling
the endless changes on a few phrases.
There are those who think that if an ex-
hortation or discourse have frequent
mention Of Justification, sanctitication,
covenant Of works and covenant of
grace, that therefore 1t must be pro-
foundly evangelical, while they are sus-
picious OF discourse which presents the
same truth, but under different phrase
ology. Now, l say there is nothing in
all the opuent realm Of Anglo .Saxonism
of all the word treasures that we inherit
cd from from the Latin and the Greek,
aud the Iado- European, but we have a
right to rnarahal it in religious discus.
sions. Christ sets the example. His
illustrations were from the grass, the
flowers. the spittle, the salve, the barn
yard fowl, the crystals Of salt, as well
as from the seas and tho stars; and We
do not propose in our Sunday school
hSaCblhS uuo III huuECS4 TO DO
put on the limits.
l know that there is a great deal said
in our day against words. as though
they were nothing. They may bo mis-
used, but they have an imperial power.
They are the bridge between soul and
soul, between Almighty God and the
human race. What did God write upon
the tables of stonef Words. What did
Christ utter on Mount Olivet9 Words.
Out OF what did Christ strike the spark
for the illumination of the universei
Out Of Words. Let there be light"
and light was. Of course, thought is
the cargo and words are only the ship;
but how fast would our cargo get on
without the ship2 What you need, my
friends, in all your work, in your Sab
bath school claes, in your Heformatory
institutions, and what we all need is to
enlarge our vocabulary when we como to
speak about God and Christ and heaven.
We ride few old words to death W aen
there is such an illimitable resources.
Shakespeare employed $1,000 different
words for dramatic purposes; Milton
employed 5000 different words for po-
etc purposes; Rufus Choate employed
over II 900 different words for legal
purposes; but the most of us have less
than 1.000 words that we can manage,
less than 500, and that makes us so stu
pid.
When we como to set forth the love of
Christ we arc going to take the tenderest
phraseology whenever we find it, and If
it has meyer been used in that direction
before, all tho more shall we use It..
When we como to speak of the glory of
Christ, the Conqnerer, we are going to
draw our similes from triumphal arch
and oratorio, and everything grand and
stupendous. The French navy have
eighteen flags by which they give sig.
nails, but those eighteen flags they can
put into sixty-six thousand different
combinations.
Aud I have to tell you that these
standards of the cross may be lifted into
combinations infinite and varieties eve:-
lasting. Aud let me say to these young
men who come frcm the theological semi.
narics into our services every Sabbath,
and are after q while going to preac ch
Jesus Christ, you will have the largest
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