The southern argus. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Cherokee County, Kan.) 1891-1???, 1891-10-01
MARCH OF CHRIST.
DR.. Talmage Reviews the Earthly
Career Of the Saviour.
His Wondrous neutrality-suspicious. and
Great Deeds of the Son of Mantle
Betrayal, Crucifixion and Victory
Over Death.

ION his head were many crowns" Dr.
Talmage said
May your ears be alert and youl
thoughts concentrated, and all the pow.
ers Of your soul aroused, while speak
toyou Of THE March Of Christ Through
the Centuries" You say: "Give us,
then, good start, in rooms of vermil.
lion and on floor of mosaic and amid
corridors of porphyry and under can
opies dyed in all the splendors Of the
setting sun" You can have no such
starting place. At the time our Chief
tain was born there were castles on
the beach Of Galilee and palaces at Je-
rusalem, and imperial bath rooms at
Jericho, and obelisks at Cairo and the
rantheon at Rome, with its corinthian
portlcc an ~l~5 sixteen granite columns;
and the parthenon at Athens with its
glistcning 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.
cows stall, winter month an at
mosphere 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 desper-
ADDE'S 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
eighty-sixth year, has described in his
volume entitled, 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
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 dishonor, for
Hadrian built there the grove Of
Adonis and for one hundred and eighty
years the religion there observed was
the most abhorrent debauchery the
world has ever seen.
Our Chieftain was considered danger
Gus from the start The world had put
suspicious eyes upon him because at
the time of his birth, the astrologers
had seen stellar connections, a world
out of its place and shooting down to-
ward caravansary. Star divination
was a science. AS late as the eighteenth
century it had its votaries. At the
court Of Catharine de Medici it was
honored. Kepler, one of the wisest
philosophers that the world ever saw,
declared it was true science. AS late
as the reign of Charles III. 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
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
lie came from another world and after
thirty-three years was again to eX-
change 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
Christmas night, make some special
demonstration. Why should they leave
to one world or meteor the bearing Of
the news Of the humanization of Christ?
In watching this march of Christ
through the centuries we must not
walk before him or beside him, for that
would not be reverential or worshiDfu
So we walk behind him. We follow |
him while not yet in his teens, up a |
Jerusalem terrace, to a building 600 |
feet long and 600 feet wide, and under |
the lowering splendor of gateways,
and by pillar crowned with capital |
chiseled into the shape of flowers and |
leaves, and along by walls of beveled |
masonry and near marble screen IN
til group Of white-haired philosophers
and theologians gather around him and |
then the hoY hawildars and oonfoands, |
and ovcrwhelms these scholarly septu- |
agenarians with questions they cannot |
answer, and under his quick why's and |
wherefores, and hows and whens, they |
pull their white boards with EN- barrass-
ment and rub their wrinkled foreheads
In confusion, and putting their Stats
hard down on the marble floor as they
arise to 60, they must feel like Gliding
the boldness that allows twelve years
Of age to ask seventy-fve years Of age
sucn puzzlers.
Out Of this building we follow Him
into the Quarantania, the mountain of
temptation, 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 Chief
tain's capture. But although weak
ened by forty days and forty nights Of
abstinence, He hurls all pandemonium
down the rocks, suggestive of how He
can hurl into helplessness all our
temptations And now we climb right
after Him, up the tough sides of the
Mount IF RaatitudaS apd u, ~ |