The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-11-26
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE's SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The Wonderful Distance
Traversed by Christ"

Traversed by Christ"
TEXT: $50 lifted up mine eyes the aUay
to,oard the north."-Ezekiel viii, s.
At one o'clock on December afternoon,
through Damascus gate, we are passing out
Of Jerusalem for journey northward. Hol
for Bethel, with its stairs, the bottom step OF
which was stone pillow; and Jacobs well,
with its immortal colloquy; and Nazareth,
with its divine boy in His fathers carpenter
shop, and the most glorious lake that ever
rippled or flashed
Blne Gsee. sweet Galilee,
The lake where Jesus loved to be;
and Damascus, with its crooked street called
Straight, and hundred places charged and
surcharged with apostolic, evangellstic, pro-
phetic, patriarchal, kingly and Christly rem
iniscences.
In travelling along the roads of Palestine I
am impressed, as I could not otherwise have
been, with the fact that Christ for the most
part went afoot. We find Him occasionally
on boat, and once riding in triumphal
procession, as it is sometimes called, although
Il seems to me that the hosannas Of the crowd
could not have made O ride on stubborn,
unimpressive and funny creature like that
which battered with Him into Jerusalem
very much of triumph. But we are made
to undertand that generally He walked. How
much that means only those know who have
gone over the distance traversed by
Christ
We are accustomed to read that Bethany
is two miles from Jerusalem. Well, any man
in ordinary health can walk two miles with
out fatigue. But not more than one man
out of thousand can walk from Bethany to
Jerusalem without exhaustion. It is over
the Mount of Olives, and you must climb up
among the rolling stones and descend where
e1ertion is necessary to keep you from fall
ing PROSTATE. I, who am accustomed tc
walk fifteen or twenty miles without lassi.
tude, tried part Of this road over the Mount
Of Olives, and confess that would not want
upon ones physical energies. Yet Christ
walked it twice day-in the morning from
Bethany to Jerusalem, and in the evening
from Jerusalem to Bethany.
Likewise it seemed a small thing that
Christ walked from Jerusalem to Nazareth.
But it will take us four days Of hard horse
back riding, sometimes on trot and some
times on a gallop, to do it this week. The
way is mountainous in the extreme. To
those who went up to the Tip Top house on
Mount Washington before the railroad was
laid will say that this journey from Jeru-
salem to NaZareth is like seven such Ameri
across and recrossing Palestine, Jesus walked.
Ahab rode. David rode. Solomon rode.
Herod rode Antony rode. But Jesus
walked. With swollen ankles and sore
muscles of the legs and bruised heel and stiff
joints and painting lungs and faint head,
along tho roads and where there were no
roads at all Jesus walked.
We tried to get new horse other
than that on which we had ridden on the
journey to the Dead Sea, for he had faults
which our close acquaintanceship had devel
oped. But after some experimenting with
other quadrupeds of that Species and finding
that all horses, like their riders, have faults,
we concluded to chooss q saddle on that
beast whose faults we were most prepared
to pity or resist. We rode down through the
valley and then up on Mount Scopus and,
as our dragoman tells us that this is the last
opportunity We shall have Of looking at Je-
rusalem, we turn our horses head toward
the city and take long. sad and thrilling
look at the religious capital of our planet.
This is the most impressive view Of the most
tremendous city of all time.
On and around this hill the armies of the
crusaders at the first sight of the city
threw themselves on their faces in worship.
Here most Of the besieging armies ell
camped the night before opening their vol.
leys of death against Jerusalem. Our last
look! Farewell, Mount Zion, Mount
Moriah, Mount Of Olives, Mount Calvaryl
Will we never see them again2 Never.
The world is so large and time is so short,
and there are so many things we have never
seen at all, that we cannot afford to duplicate
visits or see anything more than once. Fare
well, yonder thrones Of gray rock, and the
three thousand years Of architecture and
battleaelds. Farewell, sacred, sanguinary,
triumphant, humiliated Jerusaleml Across
this valley Of the Kedron with my right
hand throw thee kiss Of valedictory Our
last look, like our first look, an agitation OF
body, mind and soul indescribable.
And now, like Ezekiel in my tent, lift
up mino eyes the way toward the north.
Near here was one of tine worst tragedies Of
the ages mentioned in the Bible. A hospitable
old man coming home at eventido from his
work in the fields finds two strangers, hus-
band and wife, proposing to lodge in the
street because no shelter is offered them, and
invites them to come and spend the night in
his home. During the night the ruffians Of
the neighborhood conspired together, and
surrounded the house, and left the woman
dead on the doorstep, aud the husband, to
rally in revenge the twelve tribes,
twelve parts and sent twelfth Of it to each
tribe, and the fury Of the nation was reused,
and q peremptory demand was made for the
surrender Of the assassins, and, the demand
refused, in one day twenty thousand people
we're left dead on tts field and the next day
eighteen thousand. Wherever our horse to-
day plants his loot IN those ancient times 9.
corpse lay, and the roads were crossed by red
rivulets of carnage.
Now We pass on to where seven youths
were put to death and their bodies glib
beted or hung in chains, not for anything
they had themselves done, but as repar-
alton for what their father and grand.
father Saul, had done. Burial was denied
these youths from May until November:
Rizpah, the mother of two Of these dead
bows, appoints herself as sentinel to guard
the seven corpses from beak Of raven and
tooth of wolf and paw Of lion. She pitches
q black tent on the rock close by the
g1bbers. klzpah by day sits on the ground
In front Of her tent, and when a vulture be-
gins to lower out Of the monday sky seeking
its prey among the gibbets Rizpah rises, her
long hair flying in the wind, and swinging
her arms wildly about shoos away the
bird of prey until it retreats to its eyrie. At
night she rests under the shadow of her tent,
and sometimes falls into drowsiness or half
sleep. But the step Of jackal among the
dry leaves or the painting of hyena arouses
her, and with the fury OF maniac she rushes
out upon the rock crying, Away! AwayT
and then, examining the gibbets to see that
they still keep their burden, returns again to
her tent till some swooping wing from the
midnight sky or some growing monster on
the rock again wakes her.
A mother watching her dead children
through May, June, July, August, Septen.
ber and October! What vigil Painters
have tried to put upon canvas the scene, and
they succeeded in sketching tho hawks i'll the
sky and the panthers crawling out from the
jungle, but they fail to give the wanness.
the earnesuness, rne supernatural courage,
the infinite self sacrifice of Rizpah, the
mother Another in the quiet home watch
ing by the casket of a dead child for one
NIGHT exerts the artist to his utmost, but who