Connecticut western news., 1891-12-31
OF THE NATIVITY.
SERMON PREACHED BY DR. T. DE
 WITT TALMAGE.

Powerful and Impressive Discourse Lis
 tened to by Vast Congregation-The
 Babe in the Manager.
 BROOKLYN, Dec. 27. Dr.. Talmage preached this morning a sermon ap- propliate to the Christmas season. Taking up the subject of the Nativ lty he drew from it. lessons which. though perfectly legitimate, are commonly overlooked. His text was Luke ii, 16, And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph. and the Babe lying ill manager"
 The black window shutters of a December night were thrown open. and some of the best singers of 9 world where they all sing stood there. and putting back the drapery of cloud. chanted a peace anthem. until all the echoes of hill and valley applauded and encored the Hallelu jah chorus. Come, let us go into that Christmas scene as though we had never before wOrshiped at the manager. Here is Madonna worth looking at.
 wonder not that the most ire quent name in all lands and in all Christian centuries is Mary. And there are Marys ill palaces and Marys in cabins. and though German and French and Italian and Spanish and English pronounce It differently. they are all namesakes of the one whom we find on bed of straw. with her pale face against the soft cheek of Christ in the night of the Nativity. All the great painters have tried. on canvas to present Mary and her child and the incidents of that most famous night of the worlds history.
 Raphael in three different master pieces celebrated them Tintoretto and Ghirlandajo surpassed them selves in the adoration of the Magi Correggio needed to do nothing more than his Madonna to become inmor tal The Madonna of the Lily. by Leonardo la Vinci. will kindle the admiration of all ages But all the galleries of Dresden are forgotten when 1 think of the small room of that gallery containing the Sistine Madonna Yet all of them were cop ies of St. Matthew's Madonna and Luke's Ma donna, the inspired Ma donna of the Old Book. which we had put into our hands when we were infants. and that we hope to have under our heads when we die.
 GOD HoNORED THE BRUTEs.
 Behold, i'll the first place. that on the first night of Christ's life God honored the brute creation You can not get into that Bethlehem barn without going past the camels, the mules, the dogs. the oxen. The brutes of that stable heard the first cry of the infant Lord Some of the old painters represent the oxen and camels kneeling that night before the newborn babe. And we'll might they kneell Have you ever thought that Christ came among other things to alleviate the SufferingS of the brute creationl Was it not appropriate that he should, during the first few days and nights of his life on earth. be surrounded by the dumb beasts. whose moan and plaint and believing have for ages been prayer to God for the arresting of their tortures and the fighting of their wrongs2 It did not merely happen so" that the unintel ligent creatures of God should have been that ulg Int in close neighborhood. Not kennel in all the centuries, not birds nest. not q worn out horse on towpath. not herd freezing in the poorly built COW pen not freight car in summer time bringing the | beeves to market without water | through thousand miles of agony. not surgeons room witnessing the 1 struggles of fox or rabbit or pigeon or dog in the horrors of vivisection, but has an interest in the fact that | Christ was born in d stable. surround ed by brutes He remembers that night. and the prayer he heard in their pitiful moan he will answer in the punishment of those who mai treat the dumb blutes. They surely have as much right in this world as we have
 In the first chapter of Genesis you may see that they were placed on the earth before man was, the fish and fowl created the fifth day. and the l quadlupHls the morning of the sixth day. and man not until the afternoon of that day The whale. the eagle the llon and all the lesser creatures of their kind were predecessors o1 the human family. They have the world by right of possession. They have also paid rent for the places they occupied. What an army o1 defense all over the world are the faithful watchdogs. And who can 1 tell what the world owes the horse and camel and OK for transportation And robin and lark have, by the can tatas with which they have filled or rharl and forest. more than paid fol the few grains they have picked uI for their sUStenance.
 When you abuse any creature o. God you strike its Creator, and yol insult the Christ who, though he might have been welcomed into lift by princes and taken his first infan tile slumber amid Tyrian plush an( canopieel rouches and ripping wate1' from royal aqueducts dripping into basins of ivory aud pearl. chose to b' born on the level with a cows horn or camel's hoof, or a dogs nostril that he might be the alleviation O animal suffering as well as the re deemer of man.
 Standing there, ';as imagine now
 do, in that Bethlehem night with a1 infant Christ on the one side and the speechless creatures of God on the l ,thn,. | ..,.x, lfu,lI <,1,t hIUy x-rl1 ' 1i iyt