Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-12-28
OF THE NATIVITY.
SERMON PREACHED BY DR.. 7. DE
WITT TALMAGE.

a Night in Bethlehem His subject-A
Powerful and Impressive Discourse Lis
tened to by Vast Coneregation-The
Babe in the Manager.
BROOKLYN. Dec. q. Dr.. Talmage
preached this morning a sermon ap
/ propriate to the Christmas season.
/ Taking up the subject of the Nativ-
ity he drew from it lessons which,
/ though perfectly legitimate, are
commonly overlooked His text was
/ Luke ii. IS. And they came with
4 haste. and found Mary and Joseph,
and the Babe lying in manager.
The black window shutters of a
/ December night were thrown open,
and some of the best singers of a
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-
! iah chorus. Come let us go into
that Christmas scene as though we
had never before worshiped at the
manager. Here IS a Madonna worth
looking at.
wonder not that the most fire.
duent name in all lands and in all
Christian centuries is Mary. And
there are Marys in 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 alteration Of the Magi.
COrreggiO needed to do nothing more
than his Madonna to become i1nmOr-
tai The Madonna OF the Lily by
Leonardo da Vinci, will kindle the
admiration Of all ages. But all the
galleries of Dresden are forgotten
when l think OF the small room of
that gallery containing the Sistine
Madonna. Yet all of them were cop
les of St Matthew's Madonna and
Lukes Madonna, 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, III 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
b1utes 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 well might
they kneell Have you ever thought
that Christ came among other things
to alleviate the su4ferings Of the brute
creation2 Was it not appropriate that
he should, during the first few days
and nights CT his life on earth, be
surrounded by the dumb beasts, whose
moan and plant and believing have
for ages been a prayer to God for the
arresting of their fortunes and the
righting of their wrongs? 1t did not
merely happen so" that the Jnintel-
ligent creatures of God should have
been that night in close neighborhoOd.
Not a kennel in all the centuries,
not birds nest, not a worn out horse
on tOwpath, not a herd freezing in
the poorly built COW pen, not freight
car in summer time bringing the
beeves to market without water
through a thousand miles of agony,
not a surgeons room witnessing the
struggles of fox or rabbit or pigeon
OF dog in the horrors of vivisection,
but has an interest in the fact that
Christ was born in a stable, surround
ed by b1'utes. He remembers that
night, and the prayer he heard in
their pitiful moan he will answer in
the punishment of those who NAL
treat the dumb brutes. 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
quadrupeds the morning of the sixth
day, and man not until the afternoon
Of that day. The whale, the eagle,
the lion, and all the lesser creatures
of their kind were predecessors of
the human family They have the
world by right of possession. They
have also paid rent for the places
they occupied What an army of
defense all over the world are the
faithful watchdOgs. And who can
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
chard and forest, more than paid for
the few grains they have picked up
for their sustenance.
When you abuse any creature of
God you strike its Creator, and you
insult the Christ who, though he
might have been welcomed into life
by princes and taken his first infan-
tile slumber amid Tyrian plush and
canopied touches and ripping waters
from royal aqueducts dripping into
basins of ivory and pearl, chose to be
born on the level with a cows horn,
or a camel's hoof, or a dogs nostril,
that he might be the alienation of
animal suffering as well as the re
deemer of man.
Standing there, as imagine now
do, in that Bethlehem night with an
infant Christ on the one side and the
speechless creatures of God on the
other, l cry, look out how you strike
the rowel into that horses side Take
off that curbed bit from that bleeding
mouth. Remove that saddle from
that raw back. Shoot not for fun that |
bird that is too small for food For
get not to put water into the cage of |
that canary. Throw out some crumbs
to those birds caught too far north in
the winters inclemency. Arrest that
man who is making that one horse
draw load heavy enough for three.
Rush in upon that scene where boys
are tortuTing a cat or transf1xing
butterfly and grasshopper
Drive not off that old robin, for her