The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1891-04-28
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
SAVING WISDOM COMPARED TO A
PERFECT CRYSTAL.

ness, In Trsnsparoncy. in symmetry
and In Beauty--souIs OF sinners tha
capitalization or Mercy.
New York, April 19.-The eager
ness to hear DR.. Talmage's sermons
at the Christian Herald services on Sum
day evenings in this city continues UNI
abated. AS usual there was this cven-
ing a dense mass Of people waiting out
side the Academy of Music long before
the hour for commencement aud every
seat in the huge building was occupied
in q few minutes after the doors were
opened. DR.. Talmage had preached to
an immense audience in the morning in
the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His
text was: 1.-THE crystal cannot eaualit'
Job. xviii: Z.
Many ofthe precious stone of the Bibles
have come to prompt recognition. But
for the present / take up the less yalua-
BILE crystal. Job, In my text, compares
saving wisdom with specimen oftopaz.
An infidel chemist or m~ineralogist
would pronounce the latter worth more
than the former, but Job makes an in
teligent comparison, looks at religion and
then looks at the crystal and %pronounccs
the former as of far superior value to
the latter. exclaiming in the words of my
text, ''The crystal cannot equal it,"
Now, 1T is not a part of my sermonlc
design to depreciate the crystal, whether
il be found in Cornish mine or Hartz
mountain or Mammoth Cave or linking
among the %pendanta of the chandeliers.
The crystal is the star of the mountain;
If it Is the queen of tho cave; il is the ear
drop OF the hills; it finds its heaven in the
diamond. Among all the pages of ma
tural history there is no page more in
teresting to me than the page crystallo-
graphic. But L want to show you that
job was right when, taking religion in
one hand and the crystal in the other,
he declared that the former is of far
more value and beauty than the latter,
recommending it to all people and to all
ages, declaring: "The crystal cannot
equal it," In the first place L remark
eAactness. That shapeless mass ofcrys-
tai against which your accidcntly dashed
your foot is laid out with more exact.
ness than any earthly city. There are
six styles of capitalization and all of
them divinely ordained. Every crystal
has mathematical precision. Gods
geometry reaches through it, and 1t is
n square or it is n %rectanglc, or 1t is q
rhomboid or in some way it hath n math-
ematical figure. Now, religion beats
that in The simple fact that spiritual ac-
curracy Is more beautiful than material
accuracy. Gods attributes are exact.
Gods DEGREES exact. Gods manage
ment of the world exact. Never count
ing wrong, though he counts the grass
blades and the stars and tho SAT- ds and
the cycles. His providences never deal
Ing with us prepcndicularly when til lose
providences ought to be oblique, or
lateral when they ought to be vertical.
Everything in our life arranged with
out any possibility of mistake. Each
life a siX-sided prism. Born at the
right time; dying at the right time.
There are no ''happen-so's" in our the
ology. If L thought this was n Slip
shod universe L would so crazy. God
is not an anarchist. Law, order, sym
metery, precision, a perfect square, a
perfect rectanglc, a sertect rhomboid, a
perfect circle. The edge of Gods robo
ofgovernment never trays out. There
are nc loose screws in the worlds ma
chlnery. 1t did not just happen that
Napoleon was attacked with indigcs-
tion at BOrodlno so that he became in
SohilCtShG lOI ltNC udNs IL ull uOU JuSL
happen that John Thomas, tho mission
airy, on a hcathen island, waiting for an
outfit and orders for another missionary
tour, received that outfit and those or
ders in q box that floated ashore, while
the ship and the crew that carried
the box were never heard OF. The bark
ing of f. w. Robertson's dog, he tells
u.s., led to a line Of events which brought
him from the army into the Christian
ministry, where he served God with
w~orld-renowned usefulness. 1t did not
merely happen so. L believe in a par
ticular providence. L believe Gods ge-
ometry may be seen in all our life more
beautifully han III cry~stallOgraphy.
Job was right. ''The crystal cannot
equal It,"
Again / remark that religion is supc-
rior to the crystal in,transparency. We
know not when or by whom glass was |
first discovered. Beads oft have been |
foundin the tomb of Alexander Severus. |
Vases of it are brought up from the ruins
of Herculaneum. There were female
adornments made out of il 5000 years
ago-those adornments found now at
tached to the mummies of Egypt. A
great many commentators believe that |
my text means glass. What would we
40 without The crystal? The crystal IN
The window to keep out the storm and
let in the day-the crystal over the watch
: defending its delicate machinery, yet
allowing us to see the hour-thc crystal
OF the telescope by which the %astrono-
mer brings distant worlds SO near he can
inspect them. Oh, the trlumpiis of the
crystals in the celebrated windows of
Rouen and Salisbury? But there is
nothing so transparent In q crystal as
in our holy religion. 1t is q transparent
religion. You put 1t to your eye and
you see man-his sin, his soul, his
destiny. You look at God and you see
something of the grandeur of his charac-
Ter. tits a transparent religion. Infdels
tel us 1t is Opaque? D9you know why
they tell us it is opaque? 1t is because
they are blind. The natural man receiveth
not the things of God because they are
spiritually discerned. There is no trouble
with the crystal; the trouble is with the
eyes which try to look through it. We
pray for vision, Lord, that our eyes
mieht>0e opened. When the eyc-salve
cures our blindness then we find that
religion is Transparent.
1t is a transparent Bible. All the
mountains of the Bible come out; Sinai, |
the mountain OF the law; Pisgah, the |
y snnrnfotn oF ,>,nc,n.t." nl.,,oI A. ... |