Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-10-09
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES Sun.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: THE March OF Christ
Through the Centuries"

may your ears De alert ana your thoughts
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. a good start in
rooms OF vermillion and on floors Of mosaic
and amid corridors of porphyry and under
setting sun" You can have no such start
ing place. At the time our Chieftain
was born there were castles on the beach
OF Gai!lee and palaces at Jerusalem and
imperial bathrooms at Jericho and obelisks
at Cairo and the Pantheon at Rome, with
its Corinthian portico and its sixteen granite
columns. and the Parthenon at Athens, with
its giisUening coronet Of temples, and there
W. re mountains of fine architecture IN many
parts of the world, but none of them was to
be the starting place Of the Cheftain | cele-
brate.
\ cows stall, winter month, an atmos-
phere n which are the moan of camels, and
the baaing of sheep, and the barking Of dogs,
and the rough banter Of hostalries He takes
HIS first journey before He could walk
Armed dasperadoes, with hands of blooo,
were ready to snatch Hin down into butch
cry. Rev. William H. Thompson, the vete-
ran ant beloved missionary, whom 1 saw
this last month in Denver, in his eighty
sixth year, has described, in his volumne en-
titte3, The Land and the Book, " Bethlehem
as he saw it,
Winter before last walked up and down
the gray hills Of Jura limestone on which
David had been born there, had not during
ages elevated the village into any special
attention. The other fact that it was the
birthplace of our Chieftian did not keep
the place in after years from special dis
honor for Hadrian built there the Grove Of
Adonis and for one hundred and eighty
years the religion observed there was the
most abhorrent debauchery the world has
ever seen. Our Chieftain considered
dangerous from the start. The world had
put suspicious eyes upon Him because at the
time of His birth the astrologers had seen
stellar cOmmOtiOns-a world out of its place
and shooting down toward q caravansary.
Star divinatiOn a science. AS late as
the Eighteenth century it had its votaries.
At the Court of Catherine de Medic it was
hCnored.
Kepler one of the wisest philosophers that
the world ever saw, declared it true
scierce As laue as the reign Of Charles H.
Lilly an astrOloger, was called before the
House of Commons in England to give his
opinion as to future events. For ages the
bright appearance of Mars meant war, of
Jupiter, meant power, OF the Pleiades, meant
storms at sea. And, as history moves in
circles do not know but that after while
it may be found that, as the moon lifts the
tides of the 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
tiOnS n this world.
10 not wonder that the connections in
the heavens excited the wise men on the
night our Chieftain was born. AS He came
from another world and after thirty-three
years was again to exchange worlds, 1t does
not seem strange to that astronomy
should have felt the effect of His coming.
And instead of being unbeieving about the
one star that stopped l won Ter that all the
worlds in the heavens did not that Christ
mas night make some special demonStra-
ton. Why should they leave to one world
or meteor the bearing OF the news OF the
humanizaton of Christ? Where was Mars
that night that it did not indicate the
mighty wars that were to come between
Righteousness and iniquity? Where was
Jupiter that night that it did not celebrate
omnipotence incarnated? Where was the
Pleiades that night that they did not an
nOunce the storms of persecution that would
assai 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.
erentiai or worshipful. So we walk behind
Him. We follow Him while not yet in His
teens, up a Jerusalem terrace, to build
i'm six hundred feet long and six hundred
feet wide, and under the lowering Splen-
dor Of gateways, and by pillar crowned
WITH capital chiseled into the shape OF flow
ers and leaves, and along by walls
of beveled masonry and near a mar
bic screen, until a group OF whlte-hared
philosophers and theOlOgians gather around
Him, and then the boy hewilderS and con
POUNDS and overwheln-s these scholarly
septua penar ans with questions they
not answer. and under His gu OK why's and
whyEors ami hows and whens they pull Their
white boards with embarrassment and ruo
Their wrinkled fOreheads in confusion, and,
putting their stats hard down on the marble
floor as they arise to so, they must feel ike
Gliding the holiness that allows twelve
years OF age to ask seVenty-five years OF age
such puzzlers.
Out of this building we follow Him into
the QuarantanIa. the mountain OF tempUa-
ton, its side to this day black with robbers
dens. Look Up the side Of this mountain
come all the forces of perdition to effect our
Chieftain's capture. But although weakened
by forty days and forty nights of absti-
hence, He hurls all Pan 1emonium down the
rocks suggestive of how He can hurl into
helpIessness all our temptations. And now
we climb right after Him up the tough sides
of the Mount of Beatitudes," and on
of Hatin before Him, the Lake of
GaliIee 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 Chieftain 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 1t when be
tried to walk the water.
Christ our leader is ON toe top OF the toss
ing waves, and it is about half past three in
the morning, and it is the darkest time just
before davbreaS. But by the flashes of
lightning we see Him putting His feet on
the crest of the wave stepping from crest
to crest, walking the white surf solid
though it were frozen snow. The sailors
think ghost is striding the tempest, bat He
cheers them into p!acldity, showing Himself
to be great Christ for sailors. Aud He
walks the Atlantic and the Pacific and the
Mediterranean and A1riatic now and if eX-