The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-09-28
THE MARCH OF CHRIST.
A HOLY JOURNEY THAT HAS COME
THROUGH THE CENTURIES.

ment Sunday in the Tabernacle-On
the Journey Reverence Demands
That the World Follow the Savior
Instead of Leading.
BROOKLYN, Sept 27.-This is Sacrament
Sunday at the Brooklyn tabernacle. The
services, as usual on these occasions, were
very solemn and impressive. The morning
service opened with the long metre doxol-
ogy. The grand offertoire by Grison was
exquisitely rendered by Prof. Henry Eyre
Browne, and the service closed with thu
ma jestic coronation hymn DIR. Talmages
discourse was on "The March of Christ
through the Centuries" and his text Reve-
lation xix, H. "On his head were many
crowns
May your ears be alert and your thoughts
concentered, and all the powers Of your soul
aroused. while l speak to you of ''the
march OF Christ through the centuries"
! ou say, Give us then a good start in
rooms Of veTmillion 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 Cali.
lee, and palaces at Jerusalem, and imperial
| bathrooms at Jericho, and obelisks at Cairo
aud the Pantheon at Rome, with its corin-
THAN portico and its sixteen granite cOl-
umns 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 were
to be the starting place of the chieftain
celebrate.
! A cows stall, winter month, an atnos-
phere in which are the moan of camels and
the baaing Of sheep and the barking OF
dogs and the rough banter of hostleries.
| He takes his first journey before he could
walk. Armed desperadoes with hands of
blood were ready to snatch him down into
butchery. Rev. William II. Thompson,
| the veteran and beloved missionary whom
| saw this last month in Denver, in his
elghty-sixth year. has described, in bis vol
ume entitled "The Land and the Book"
Bethlehem as be saw it. 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 it
was the birthplace Of our chieftain did not
keep the place in after years from special
dishoaor, for Hadrian built there tue
grove of Adonis and for one huns
dred and eighty years the religion
there observed was the most abhorrent de-
bauchery the world has ever seen. 0uE
chieftaiu was 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 COM
notions a world out of its place and shoot
ing down toward a carayansary. Star
| divination was IA science As late as the
| eighteenth century it had its votaries.
| AT the court of Cathariue do Med
icl it was honored. Kepler, one Of
the wisest philosophers that tue world ever
saw, declared it was a true science. AS late
as the reign Of Charles III. Lilly an astrol.
oyer, was called before the House Of Conf
mons in England to give his opinion as to
future events. For ages the bright appear
ance OF Mars meant war; of Jupiter, meenu
power; Of the Pleiades, meant storms at
sea. And as history moves in circles, | do
not know but that after a while it may be
found that, as the moon lifts the tides of
the sea and the sun affects the growth or
blasting of crops, other worlds besides those
two worlds may have something to do with
the destiny Of individuals and nations In this
| world
do 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 af or thirty-three
| years was again to exchange worlds, it 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, | wonder that all the
worlds in the heavens did not that Christ
mas night, make some special denonstra-
tion. Why should they leave to one 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 iniquitya Where was
Jupiter that night that it did not celebrate
omnipotence incarnateds Where was the
Pleiades that night, that they did not au-.
nounce the storms OF persecution that would
assail our chieftan!
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 OF worshipful. So we walk behind
him. We follow him while not yet in his
teens, up Jerusalem terrace, to q building
six hundred feet wide. and under the how
ering splendor of gate-ways, and by pillar
crowned with capital chiseled into the shape
OF flowers and leaves and along by walls of
beveled masonry and near a marble screen
until group of white-haired philosophers
| and theologians gather around him, and
then the boy bewilders, and confounds, aud
overwhelms these scholarly sepruageEarians
with,questions they cannot answer and under
| his quick why's and whyfors and hows and
| whens, they pull their white boards with
embarrassment, and rub their wrinkled
| foreheads in confusion, and putting their
staff hard down on the marbleSioor as they
arise 10 go, they must feel like chiding the
boldness that allows twelve years Of age to
ask seventy-five years of age such puzzers.
Out OF this building we follow him into
the Quarantapia, the mountain of tempta-
tion, Its side to this day black with robbers
dens. Look Up the side of this mounv
tain come all the forces of perdition IL
effect our chieftain's capture. But, al
| though weak cned by forty days and forty
nights of abstinence, be hurls all pande-
| monium down the rocks, suggestive OF how
| he can hurl into helplessness all our temptas
tions. And now we climb right after him,
up the tough sides of the mount of Beati-
tudes," and on the highest pulpit of rocks.
| the Valley Of Hatin before MIN, the lake OK
| Galilee to the right of him. the Mediter-
| ranean sea 70 the left of him, and he
| breaches a sermon that vet will transform
| the world with its applied sentiment Now
1 we follow our chieftain on Lake Galilee.
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 the tossing waves,
aud it is about half past three IN the morn
| ing, and IL is the darkest time just before
day~break. But by the flashes Of lightning
we SEQ him putting bis feet on the crest OF
| the wave. stepping from crest 70 crest,
walking the white surf. solid as though II
we're frozen snow. The sailors think
| ghost Is striding the tempest, but he cheers
| them iLto placidity, showing himself TO be
a great Christ for sailors. And be walks
the Atlantic ana Pacific ard Mediterranean
and Adriatic now. and II exhausted and nf-
frighted yOYagers will listen for bis yoica az