The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-06-25
GODS JEWELS.
Dr.; Talmage likens the Christian
Religion to the Crystal.
Beautiful and Symmetrical, 1t Commands
the Admiration of All who View It
Except Through Eyes Blind
cd by Unbelief.

The following discourse was delivered
by Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage before con-
gregations in Brooklyn and New York
city on recent Sabbath, from the text:
The crystal can not equal it.-Job xxviii..L
Many of the precious stones of the
Bible have come to prompt recognition.
But for the present l take up the less
valuable crystal Job, in my text, COM
pares saving wisdom with a specimen
of topaz. An infidel chemist or mineral
ogist would pronounce the latter worth
more than the. former but Job makes
an intelligent comparison, looks at re-
ligion and then looks at the crystal and
pronounces the former as of far supe-
rior to the latter, e&claiming in the
words of my text, ''the crystal can not
equal it."
Now, it is not part of my sermonic
design to depreciate the crystal whether
it be found in Cornish mine, or Hartz
mountain, or Mammoth cave, or tinkling
among the pendants of the chandeliers
of palace. The crystal is the star of
the mountain; it is the queen of the
cave; it is the ear-drop of the hills; it
finds its heaven in the diamond. Among
all the pages of natural history there
is no page more interesting to me than
the page crystallographic. But want
to show that Job was right when, TAX
ing religion in one hand and the crys-
tai in the other, he declared that the
f0r-yV1 - &c,
than the latter, recommending it to all
the people and to all the ages,
declaring: ''The crystal can not
equal it" In the first place l remark
that religion is superior to the crystal
in exactness. That shapeless mass of
crystal against which you accidentally
dashed your foot is laid out with more
exactness than any earthly city. There
are six styles of crystalization, and all
of them divinely ordained Every crys-
tai has mathematical precision. Gods
geometry reaches through it, and it is
square, or it is a rectangle, or it is a
rhomboid, or in some way it hath a
mathematical figure Now religion
beats that in the simple fact that
spiritual accuracy is more beautiful
than material accuracy. Gods attributes
are exact. Gods law exact. Gods de-
crees exact. Gods management of the
world exact. Never counting wrong,
though He counts the grass blades and
the stars and the sands and the cycles.
His providences never dealing with us
pe1pendicuiarly when those providences
ought to be oblique, nor lateral when
they ought to be vertical Everything
in our life arranged without any posi-
bility of mistake Each life six-sided
prism Born at the right time; dying
at the right time. There are no chap
pen-so's'' in our theology. If thought
this was a slip-shod universe / would
go crazy. God is not an anarch-
list. Law, order, symmetry, precision,
q perfect square, a perfect rectangle,
a perfect shomboid, a perfect circle.
The edge of Gods robe of government
never trays out There are no loose
screws in the worlds machinery 1t
did not just happen that Napoleon was
attacked with indigestion at Borodino so
that he became incompetent for the
day. It did not just happen that
John Thomas, the missionary, on
a heather island, waiting for an out
fit and orders for another missionary
tour, received that outfit and those
orders in "a box that floated ashore,
while the ship and the crew that car
ried the box were never heard of The
barking of F. w. Robertson's dog, he
tells us, led to "a line of events which
brought him from the army into ehe
Christian ministry, where he served God
with world-renowned usefulness. It did
not merely happen so. l believe in a
particular providence. l believe God s
geometry may be seen in our life more
beautifully than in crystallography
Job was right. 1.-THE crystal can not
equal it."
Again, remark that religion Is SUI
perior to the crystal in transparency.
We know not when or by whom
glass was first discover ed. Beads of it
have been found in the tomb of Alex
ander Severus. Vases of it are brought
up from the ruins of Herculaneum.
There were female adornments made
ont of it three thousand years ago.
those adornments found now attached
TO the mummies of Egypt A great
many commentators believe that
my text means glass. What would
we do 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-the crystal of the tele-
scope by which the astronomer brings
distant worlds SO near he can inspect
them. Oh, the triumphs of the crystals
in the celebrated windows of Rouen
and Salisbury But there is nothing
so transparent in a crystal as in our
holy religion. 1t Is transparent
religion. You put it to your eye and you
see man-his sin, his soul, his destiny.
You look. at God and you see some
thing of the grandeur of His character.
It is transparent religion. 1nfidels
tell us it is Opaque. 1t is because they
are blind The natural man receiveth
not things of God because they are
spiritually discerned. There is no
trouble with the crystal; the trouble is
- II. 4 ~