Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-04-20

NEW YORK, April 19.-The eagerness
to hear DR.. Talmage's sermons at The
Christian Herald services on Sunday
evenings, in this city, continues I'M
abated As usual there was TINS even
ing dense mass of people waiting out
side the Academy OF Music long before
the hour for commencement, and every
seat in the huge building was occupied
in few minutes after the doors were
opened DR. TalmaSc had preached to
an immense audience in the morning
in the Brooklyn Academy of Music
His text was, The crystal cannot equal
it, Job xviii, =.
Many Of the precious stones of the
Bible have come to prompt recog-
milton But for the present | take up
the less valuable crystal. Job, in my
text. compares saving wisdom with a
specimen of topaz ! iniidel chemist
or mineralogist would pronounce the
latter worth more than the former, but
Job makes an intelligent comparison,
looks ut religion and then looks at the
crystal and pronounces the former as
of far superior value to the latter, ex-
claiming in the words Of my text,
the crystal cannot equal it.
THE EXACTNESs OF RELIGION.
Now. 1t is not a part of my seunonic
design to depreciate the crystal, whether
it be found in Cornish mine or Hartz
mountain or Mammoth cave or tink-
ling among the pendants of the chan
delers of a palace. The crystal is the
star of the mountain; it is the queen
of the cave; it is the eardrop of the
hills; it finds its heaven in the dia-
mond Among all the pages of nat
ural history there is no page more in
teresting to me than the page crystallo-
graphic But 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 the people and
to all the ages, declaring, THE crystal
cannot equal it.
In the first place, | remark that re
ligion is superior to the crystal in exact
ness That shapeless mass of crystal
against which you accidentally dashed
your foot is laid out with more exact
ness than any earthly city. There are
six styles of crystaliiZation, and all of
them divinely ordained Every crystal
has mathematical precision. Gods ge-
ometry reaches through it, and it is
square. or it is Il rectangle. or it is a
rhombcid, or in some way it hath a
81,
beats ie.at in the simple fact that spirit
uaI accuracy is more beautiful than
material accuracy.
Gods attributes are exact. Gods
law exact. Gods DEGREES exact. Gods
management of the world exact. Never
counting wrong, though lie counts the
grass blades. and .he stars, and the
sands and the cycles. His providences
never dealing with us perpeudicularly
when those prOvidences ought to be
obIique, nor lateral when they ought
to be vertical Everything in our life
arranged without any possibility of
mistake. Each life Il six sided prism.
Born at the right time dying at the
right time. There are no happen sos
a slipshod universe l would go crazy
God is not an anarchist Law, order,
symmetry, precision, a perfect square,
a perfect rectangle, perfect rhomboid,
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 Boro-
dino so that he became incompetent for
the day. 1t did not just happen that
John Thomas, the missionary. on a
heather island, waiting for an outfit
and orders for another missionary tour,
received that outfit and those orders in
a box that foated ashore, while the
ship and the crew that carried the box
were never heard of The barking of
F. w. Robertson's dog, he tells US, led
to Il line of events which brought him
from the army into the Christian min
istry. where he served God with world
renowned usefulness. 1t did not mere
ly happen 50. | believe in Il particular
providence | believe Gods geometry
may be seen in all our life more beauti-
fully than in crystallography. Job was
right. The crystal cannot equal it..
THE TRANSPARENCY OF RELIGION.
Again l remark that religion is supe-
rior to the crystal in transparency. We
know not when or by whom glass was
first discovered. Beads of it have been
found in the tomb of Alexander Sc
e I.
the ruins of Herculaneum. There were
female adOrnmentS made out of it three
thousand years agO-tfIOse adOmments
found now attached to the mummies
of Egypt. A great many conlnenta-
tors 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 crys-
tai over the watch defending its deli
cate machinery, yet allowing US to see
the hour; the crystal Of the telescope
by which the astronomer brings dis
tant worlds SO near he can inspect
them. Oh, the triumphs of the crys-
tails in the celebrated windows of Rouen
and Salisbury
Dul tIiGIS 10 LAOti14AIS5 81 IJdECIG
in a crystal as in our holy religion. 1t
is a transparent religion. You pat it
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 character. 1t is transparent
religion. Infidels tell us it is opaquel
Do you 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 spiritu-
ally 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 might be opened. When the
eye 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 mountain of prospect; Olivet, the
mountain of instruction; Calvary, the
mountain of sacrifice All the rivers
of the Bible come out-Hidekel, or the
river of paradisaical beauty; Jordan,