Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1891-10-09
REV. Or. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun
DAY SERMON.
SUBJECT: "THE MARCH or CITI,r
THROUGH TIE CENTURIES" ="

TEXT: "On His head pere mann
crotVns. Authorization xix, l2.
May your ears be alert and your thought,
concentrated and all the powers of your
soul aroused while speak to you OF :'the
march OF Christ through the centuries"
You say, Give us then, good start in
rooms OF vermillion and on floors of mosaic
and amid corridors Of porphyry and under
canopies dyed in all the splendors of the
setting sun" You can have no such start
ing place. At the time our Chieftain
was born there were castles on the beach
OF Galilee and palaces at Jerusalem and
imperial bathrooms ut Jericho and obelisks
at Cairo and the Pantheon at Rome, with
it's Corinthian portico and Its sixteen granite
columns, and the Parthenon at Athens, with
its glistening coronet of temples, and there
were mountains of fine architecture in many
parts Of the world, but none of them was to
be the starting place of the Chieftain cele-
brate.
A cows stall, a winter month, an atmos-
phere In which are the moan OF camels, and
the baaing of sheep, and the barking of dogs,
and the rough banter of hostelries. He takes
His first journey before He could walk.
Armed desperadoes, with hands of blood,
were ready to snatch Him down into butch
cry. Rev. William II. Thompson, the vete-
ran and beloved missionary, whom l saw
this last month in Denver, in his eighty
sixth year, has described, in his volumne en-
titled, "The Land and the Book, Bethlehem
as he saw II,
Winter before last walked up and down
the gray hills of Jura limestone on which
the village now rests. The fact that King
David had been born there, had not during
ages elevated the village into any special
attention. The other fact that IL was the
birthplace of our Chieftian did not keep
the place in after years from special dis
honor, for Hadrisn built there the Grove Of
Adonis and for one hundred and eighty
years the religion observed there was tho
most abhorrent debauchery the world has
ever seen. Our Chieftain was considered
dangerous from tho start. The world had
put suspicious eyes upon Him because at the
time Of His birth the astrologers had seen
stellar comuotions--a world out OF Its place
and shooting down toward caravansary.
Star divnation was science. AS late as
tho Eighteenth century It had itscotaries.
At the Court OF Catherine de Medici it was
honored.
Kepler, one of the wisest philosophers that
the world ever saw, declared It was a trup
science. As late as the reign Of Charles II.
Lilly, an astrologer, was called before the
House of Commons in England 10 give his
opinion as to future events. For ages the
bright appearance of Mars meant war, OF
storms at tea. And, as history moves in
circles, do not know but that after while
IL may be found that, as the moon lifts tho
tides Of the sea and the sun affects the
growth or blasting of crops, other worlds be-
sides those two worlds may have something
to do with the destiny of individuals and ma
tons in this world.
do not wonder that the connections in
the heavens excited the wise men on the
.t..lt Il k,sft ft.,t,, A, l.,
from another world and after thirty-threo
years was again TO exchange worlds, 1t does
not seem strange to me that astronomy
should have felt the effect of His coming.
And instead of being unbelieving about the
one star that stopped l wonder that all the
worlds in the heavens did not that Christi
mas night make some sp5eial demonstfa-
ton. Why should ttIey leave ea>Qne~ world
or meteor the bearing Of the news Of the
humanization of Christi Where was Mars
that night that it did not indicate the
mighty wars that were to come between
Righteousness and iniquity' Where was
that night that ii did not celebrate
omnipotence incarnatedf Where was the
Plsiades that night that they did not an
nounce the storms of persecution that would
kssail our Chieftian?
In watching this march Of Christ through
the centuries, we must not walk before Him
or beside Him, for that would not be rev.
erential or worshipful SO we walk behind
Him. We follow Him while not yet In His
teens, up Jerusalem terrace, to n build
Ing six hundred feet long and six hundred
feet wide, and under the lowering splen-
dor of gateways, and by n pillar crowned
with capital chisaled into the shape Of flow
ers and leaves, and along by walls
of beveled masonry and near mar
BILE screen, until a group of whits-haired
philosophers and theologians gather around
Him, and then the boy bewilders and con-
POUNDS and overwhelms these scholarly
septuagensrians with questions they can
not answer. and under His quick. why's and
whyfors and hows and whens they pull their
white boards with embarrassment and rub
their wrinkled foreheSds IL confusion, and,
putting their stats hard down on the marble
floor as they arise to go, they must feel like
chiding the boldness that allows twelve
years Of age TO ask ssventy-five years of ago
such puzzlers.
Out of this building we follow Him into
the Quarantania, the mountain or tompta-
ton, its side to this day black with robbers
dens. Look Up the side of this mountain
come all the forces of psrdition to effect our
Chieftain's capture. But although weakened
by forty days and forty nights OF absti-
nence, He hurls all Pandemonium down the
rocks, suggestive Of how He can hurl into
helpessness all our temptations. And now
we climb right after Him up the tough sides
of the mount of Beatitudes," and on
the highest pulpit Of rocks the Valley
OF Hatin before Him, the Lake OF
Galilee to the right Of Him; the Mediterra-
mean sea to the left of Him, and He breaches
a sermon that yet will transform the world
with its applied sentiment. Now we follow
our Chiettain on Lake Galilee. We must
keep to the beach, for our feet are not shod
with the supernatural, and we remember
what poor work Peter made OF it when he
tried to walk the water.
Christ our leader is on the top Of tho toss
Ing waves, and it is about half past three in
the morning, and it is the darkest time Just
before daybreak. But by tho flashes of
lightning we see Him putting His feet on
the crest Of the wave stepping from crest
10 crest walking the white surf solid as
though it were frozen snow. The sailors
think ghost is striding the tempest but de
cheers them into placidity, showing Himself
TO be a great Christ for sailors. And He
walks tho Atlantic aud the Pacific and the
Mediterranean aud Adriatic now, and II ex-
hausted and affirighted voyagers will listen
for His voice at half past three o'clock In the
morning on any sea, indeed at any hour,
they will hear His voice Of compassion and
encouragement.
here is n blind man by the wayside. 1t Is
not from cataract Oh 70 eye or from oph-
thalmia, the eye extlnguisher of the east
but he was born blind. Be opsnedp He
cries, and first there is a smarting of the
eyelids and then twilight and then amid
noon. and then shout VI sec seen
Tell it to all the blind. and they at leas
can appreciate IT. Apd here Is the widow
dead son. and here Is the expired damsel
and here is Lazarus. "Liven our Chieftall
cries, and they live. Tell 10 through 6all th
bereft households, tell IL among the graves
And here around Him gather the deaf
and the dumb, and the sick, and at Hi
word they turn on their oouches and blusl
from awful pallow Of helpless illness Il
the dropsical sufferer becomes fleet as a ro
on the mountains The music Of the grow,
and household wakens the deaf ear, aud
lunatic and maniac return into bright in