The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-01-14
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The Birth Of Christ"

hem."-Luke IL, Is.
Amid thousand mercies we give each
| other holiday congratulations. By long
established custom we exhort each other to
| healthful merriment. By gift, by Christmas
trees which blossom and fruit in one night,
by early morning surprise, by clusters of
| lighted candles, by children's professions by
sound of instruments sUmetimes more blatant
than musical, we wake up the night and pro-
long the day. Iwish you ALL in the grandest,
| noblest and best sense a merry Christmas.
! The event commemorated is the gladdeSt Of
the centuries. Christ's cradle was as Won
derful as His cross. Persuade me of the first
| and lam not surprised at the last. The door
by which He entered was as tremendous as
the door by which He went out.
was last winter at the house where Jesus
lived while He was in Africa. 1t was in
Cairo, Egypt, the terminus of that terrible
tourney on foot which He took when Joseph
and Mary fled with Him from Bethlehem to
Egypt to escape the massacre of Herod. All
tradition, as we'll as all history, points out
this house in Cairo as the one in which these
three fugitives lived while in Africa. The
room is nine steps down from the level of
the street. measured the room and found
it twenty feet long and seven and half feet
high. There are three shelyings Of rock. one
of which think was the cradle of our Lord.
There was no window, and all the light
must have come from lantern or cradle. The
three arrived here from Bethlehem, having
crossed the awful desert.
On the Mediterranean steamer going from
Athens to Alexandria I, met the eminent
scholar and theologian, DIR. Lansing, who for
thirty-fve years has been sresident of Cairo.
and he told me that he had been all over the
road that the three fugitives took from
Bethlehem to Egypt. He says it is desert
way, and that the forced journey of the in.
fant Christ must have been terrible jour-
ney. Going up from Egypt DR.. Lansing
met people from Bethlehem, their tongues
swollen and hanging out from Inflammation
of thirst, and although his party had bat one
goatskin OF water left, and that was import
ant for themselves, he was so moved with
the spectacle of thirst in these poor pilgrims
that, though it excited the indignation Of
his fellow Travellers he gave water to the
strangers. Over this dreadful route Jo-
seph and Mary started for this land of
Egypt. No time to make much preparation.
Herod was after them, and what were these
peasants before an irate king?
Joseph, the husband and father, one night
spraug up from his mattress in great alarm,
the beads of sweat on his forehead and his
whole frame quaking. He had dreamed of
massacres of his wife and babe. They must
be off, that night, right away. Mary putup
few things hastily, and Joseph brought to
the door the beast Of burden, and helped his
wife and child to mount. Why, those loaves
of bread are not enough, those bottles of
water will not last for such long way. But
there is no time to get anything more. Out
and on. Good-by to the dear home they ex-
pect never again to see. Their hearts break.
It does not need that ours be big house in
order to make us sorry to leave it.
Over the hills and down through the deep
gorge they urge their way. By Hebron, by
GAIA, through hot sand, under blistering
sun, the babe crying, the mother faint, the
father exhausted. How slowly the days and
weeks pass! Will the weary three ever reach
the banks Of the Nile? Will they ever see
Cairo? Will the desert ever end? When at
last they cross the line beyond which old
Herod has no right to pursue their Joy is un-
bounded. Free at last! Let them dismount
and rest. Now they resume their way with
less anxiety. They will find place some
where for shelter and the earning Of their
bread. Here they are at Cairo, Egypt.
They wind through the crooked Streets
which are about ten feet wide, and enter the
humble house where have been to-day. But
the terminus of the journey of these three
furitives was not as humble as their starting
point at Bethlehem. If that journey across
the desert ended in a cellar 1t started from
a barn. Everthing humble around that barn,
advent was in the hostelry called the house
of Chin Ham; the night with diamonded
finger pointing down to the place; the door
OF heaven set wide open to look out; from
orchestral batons Of light dripping the orr
torios of the Messiah; Oh lowest doorstep OF
heaven the minstrels Of God diScoursing OF
glory and good will. Soon after the white
bearded astrologists kneel, and from leathern
pouch chink the shekels and from open sacks
1-i, md ont
bundles of myrrh. The loosened star; the
escaped doxology of celestials; the chill De-
cember night ahush with May morn; our
world lost STAR aud another star rushing
down the sky that night to beckon the wan
derer home again, shall yet make a.:S :tions
keep Christmas.
Are there no new lessons from the story
not yet hackneyed by oft lepeatal? Oh, yes!
Know in the first place, it was side.real ap-
pearance that led the way. Why not black
cloud in the shape of band or finger point
means trouble, and the world bad had trouble
enough. Why not shaft of lightning quiv-
ering and flashing and striking down to the
sacred birthplace? Lightning means destruc-
tion, shattering and consuming power, and
the world wanted no more destruction.
But it was star, and that means JOY, that
means hope, that means good cheer, that
means ascendency. A starl That means
creative power, for did not the morning
stars sing together when the portfolio of thu
worlds was openedi A start That means de-
fense for did not the stars fight in their
courses against Sisara and for the Lords
people? A star! That means brilliant con.
tinuance, for are not the righteous to shine
as the stars forever and ever? A star! That
means the opening of eternal Joy. The day
star in the heart The morning star of the
Redeemer.
The unusual appearance that night may
have been O strange conjunction Of worlds. As
the transit of Venus i'll our time was foretold
many years ago by astronomers, and astron-
omers can tell what will be the conjunction
of worlds thousand years from now, so they
can calculate backward; aud even in6del as
tronomers have been compelled to testify
that about the year there was a very un-
usual appearance in the heavens. The Chi
nese record, of course entirely independent
of the Word of God, gives as a matter of his
tory that about the year l there was a
strange and unaccountable appearance in the
heavens.
But it may have been meteor such as you
and have seen flash to the horizon. saw
few years ago in the northern sky star
shoot and fall with such brilliancy and pre-
cis:on that if had been on a hill as high as
that Of Bethlehem, on which tho Shepherds
stood, could have marked within short
distance the place Of the alighting. The
University of Iowa and the British museum
have specimens Of meteoric stones picked up
In the fields fragments flung off from other
worlds, leaving fiery trail on thu Gky. So
thatit is not to me at all improbable the stel-
lar or the meteoric appearance on that night
OF which we speak. 1 only care TO Know
that it was bright, that it was slvesy, that
it flashed and swayed aud swung AMI halted
with joy celestial as though Christ in haste
to save our world had rushed down without
His coronet, land the angels of God had hurled
it after Him!