Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-01-03
REV. DR.. TALMAGR.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun.
day Sermon.
Subjects AThe Birth Of Chr..t,

Subjects aThe Birth Of Christ.
| TEXT: Let us now 90 euess uato Rethie-
hem. Lake IL, Is.
Amid thousand mercies we awe each
| other holiday congratulations. By long
esta blished custom we exhort each other to
heaithfui 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 sometimes more blatant
| than musical, we wake up tbs night and pro-
| log the day. | wish you ALL in the grandest,
| nobiest and best sense a merry Christmas
| The event commemorate is the gladdest OF
| the centuries. Christs cradle was as won
| derful as His cross. Persuade me of the first
| and am 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 houss where Jesus
! lived while He was in Africa. 1t was in
| Cairo, Egypt, the terminus of that terrible
| journey on foot which He took when Joseph
| and Mary fed with Him from Bethlehem to
| Egypt TO escape the massacre OF Heroi. Ali
| tradition, as well as all history, points cut
| this house in Cairo as the one in which these
three fugitives livei 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 a half feet
| high. There are three shelvings of rock, ons
! OF which think was tue 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 Alexandra I met the eminent
| scholar and theo,osian, DR.. Lansing, who for
| thirty live years has been resident OF Cairo,
| and he told me that he had been all over the
road that the three fugitives took from
Bethlehem to Egyps. He says it is a desert
| way, and that the forced journey of the ill.,
FAINT 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 parry nad but one
goatskin of water ieit, aud 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 aud 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
sprang 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 aud babe They must
be off. that night right away. Mary put up
a 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 lsstf for such long way. But
| there is no time to get anything more. Out
md on. Good-by 10 the dear home they ex-
pect never again to see. Their hearts break
1t does not need that ours be a big house in
| order TO make Us CORY 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? VIII they ever see
Cairos Will the desert ever ends When at
last they cross the line beyond which old
Herod has no right TO pursue their JOY is TN
bounded. Free at lasti 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
humbie house where have been to-day. But
the terminus of the journey Of these three
fugitives was not as humble as their starting
point at Bethlehem. If that journey across
the desert ended in cellar it started from
a barn. EVERYTHING humble around that barn,
but everything glorious overhead. Christ's
| advent was in the hosiery 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 b6Gons of light dripping the ora
torios of the Messiah on lowest doorstep of
heaven the MINISTRIES of God discoursiug of
glory and good will. Soon after the white
| bearded astrologistS kneel and from leathern
pouch chiuk the shekeiS and from open sacks
exhale the frankincense and rustic out the
bundles of myrrh The loosened star; tbs
escaped doxology OF celestials, the chill De-
| cemher night afiush with May morn; our
world lost star, aud another star rushing
| down the sky that night to bec6on the wan
derar home again, shall yet make all = atioGs
keep Christmas.
Are there no new lessons from the story
not Yet hackn yed by oft lepeatal? Oh, yes!
Know in the first place it was a side real ap-
pearance that led tine way. Why not black
cloud in the shape OF a band OF finger point
ing down to this sacred birthplace A cloud
means trouble and the world ha1 had trouble
enough. Why not shaft OF lightning quiv
ering and flashing amt striking down to the
sacred birthplace Lightning means destruc-
ton, SCATTERING and consuming power and
the world wanted no more destruction.
But it was star. and that means joy, thst
! means hope, that means good cheer, that
means ascen lency. A start That mean:
creative power, for did not the morning
stars sing together when the portfolio of the
1
Tense, for did not the stars fight IN their
| courses against Sissra and for the Lori's
| 2eoples star, Tat means brilliant COZ
tinuance, Tor are not the righteous TO SHINE
ss the stars forever and evers star! Tlar
means the opening of eternal Joy The CAV
star IN the heart. The morning star of tn /,
| Radeemer
The unusual appearance that night NAV
| have been strange con junction of words As
the transit of Venus III our time was foretoid
| many years ago by astronomers, and astrJn-
| omers eau tell what will be thu conjunction
| of worlds thousand years from now SO they
Can calculate tackward and even infidel as
| tronomers have been compelled to testify
| t1at about the year there was very ua-
usual appearance in tae heavens. The Chi
| nese record of course entirely independent
| of the Word OF God, gives as matter of his
tory that about tle year | there was a
| strange ard unaccountable appearance in the
| heavens.
But it may have been meteor such as you
| and have seen fash to the horizon | saw
| a few years ago in the norddern SKY a star
shoot and fal with such briliancy and pre-
cision that if had been on hill as higl as
that of Bethlehem, on which the epherds
stood, could have markell within short
| distance the place of fAe alightng. The
| University of Iowa and the British museum
have specimens OF lneteOric stones picked up
in the fields, fragments fang OF from other
worries, leaVtng merry Trail On the SKY, -
that it is not to me at all improbable the ste!-
lar or the meteoric appearance on that ngnt
of which we speak. only care to know
that it was bright, that it was slvery, that
it flashed and swayed and swung and halted
with joy celestial, as though Christ in hasts
TO save our world had rushed down without
His coronet, and the angels of God had hurled
it after Him!
The wise men of of the East came to Christ.
They were not fools, they were not imoeciIes.
The record distinctly says that the wise men
came to Christ. We say they were the magi,
or they were the alclemists, or they were
the astrologists, and We say it with depre-
eating accumulation. Why they were the
most splendid and magnificent men Of the
century They were the naturalists and
the scientists. They knew all that was
known. You must remember that astroogy
was the mother of astronomy, and that
alchemy was the mother of chemistry, au1
because children are brighter than the
mother you do not despise the mother.
1t was the lifelong business of these astrol-
ogers to study the stars. Twenty-Five hun
dred and fifty years before Christ was born
| the wise men knew the procession of the