The Penn's Grove record., 1891-01-10
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
The brooklyn %lBiytBe's sun.
day Sermon.
Subject. The Birth of Christ"

TES5; Vet US noD 90 ereH unto 6ethte-
hem.n-Luke H., Is.
Amid a thousand mercies We give each
ether 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 sometimes more blatant
than musical, we wake up the night and pro-
long the day. l wish you all, in the graudest,
noblest and best sense, a merry Christmas.
The event conmemoratea 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 house where Jesus
lived while He was in Africa. 1t wal in
Cairo, Egypt, the terminus of that terrible
journey 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 well 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 a half feet
high. There are three shelvings of rock, one
of which / think was the cradle Of u 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, DR.. Lansing. who for
thirty-hve years has been a resident 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 q desert
way, n that the forced journey of the IN
Iant Christ must have been a 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 but 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 1t excited the indignation Of
his fellow travellers, he gave water to the
strangers. Over this dreadful route 10.
seph and Mary started for this land of
Egypt. No time to make much preparation.
Herod Yves after them, and what were these
peasants before an irate kingp
Joseph, the husband and father, one night
sprang up from his mattress in great alarm.
the beads OF sweat IN 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 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 last for such a long way. But
there ts 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.
1t does not need that ours be q big house 10
order to make US sorry to leave it..
Over the hills and down through the deem
gorge they urge their way. By Hebron, BY
GAIA, through hot sand, under a blistering
sun, the babe crying, the mother faiut. the
father exhausted. How slowly the days and
weeks passl Willthe weary three ever reach
the banks Of the Nile1 Win they ever see
Cairof VIII the desert ever endf When at
last they cross the line beyond which old
Herod has no right to pursue their Joy is un-
bounded. Free at lastl Let them dismount
and rest. Now they resume their way with
less anxiety. They will find q 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
tumble house where l have been to-day. But
the terminus of the journey of these three
fugitives was not as humble as their starting
point at Bethlehem. II that Journey across
the desert ended in a cellar It started from
q 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 oSen to look out: from
orchestral batons of light dripping the ora
torios of the Messiah; on lowest doorstep of
heaven the minstrels of God discoursing Of
glory and good will Soon after the white
bearded astrologists kneel, aud from lsathern
pouch chink the shekels and from open sacks
exhale the ~frankincenss and rustic out the
bundles Of myrrh. The loosened star; the
escaped doxology Of celestials; the chill De-
cember night adush with May morn; our
world a lost star, aud another star rushing
down the sky that night to becson the wan
derer home again, shall yet make all nations
keep Christmas.
Arethere no new lessons from the story
not yet hacknsye by oft iepeatals Oh, yes!
in the first place, 1t was a side.reat APP
pearance that led the way. Why not a black
cloud in the shape of a band Oh finger point.
down to the sacred birth-rlacsY A cloud
means trouble, and the world Rad had trouble
Why not a shaft of lightning quiv-
ering and flashing and striking down to the
sacred blrth-plscee Lightning means destruc-
tion, a shattering and consuming power, and
the world wanted no more destruction.
Butt it was a star, and that means joy, that
means hope, that means good cheer, that
means a~scendency. A start That means
~ CHaN Fo"Si, AW dfu uob tic HlOTLl1R
sing together when the portfolio of the
was opsnedi A start That means de-
Tense, for did not the stars fight in their
against Sisera and for the Lords
peoplet A start That means brilliant con-
Tor are not the righteous to shine
as the stars forever and evert A start That
means the opening Of eternal Joy. The day
star in the heart. The morning star Of the
Redeemer.
Thu ~unps,si arnaarsrca that NIGHT nav
have been a strange conjunction of worlds. As
the transit of Venusi in our time was foretold
years ago by astronomers, and astron-
omers can tell what will be the conjunction
Of worlds a thousand years from now, so they
can calculate backward, and even infidel as
have been compsl4ed to testify
that about the year l there was a very un-
usual appearance in the heavens. Tn Chi
nese record, Of course entirely independent
Of the Word Of God, gives as q matter of his
tory that about the year ! there was a
aud u~naccountable appearance in the
heavens.
But It may have been ameteor such as you
] have seen fash 10 the horizon. ! saw
few years ago in the northern sky a star
shoot and fall with such brilliancy and pro.
sision that IL ! had been on a hill as high as
that Of Bethlehem, on which the shepherds
stood, l could have marked within a short
the place of The alighting. This
University of iowa and the British museum
lave specimens OF meteoric stones picked up
n the fields, fragments flung OF from other
worlds, leaving a fiery trail on the sky. So
hat It is not to me at all improbable the stel-
ar or the meteoric appearance on that night
# which we speak. 1 only care to know
hat it was bright, that it was silvery, that
flashed and swayed and swung and halted
With Joy celestial, as though Christ in haste
% save our world had rushed down without
His coronst, and the angels Of God had hurled
It after Himl
The wise men Of of the East came to Christ.
They were not fools, they were not imbeciles.
The record distinctly says that the wise men
zane to Christ. We say they were the magi,
they were the alchemists or they were
the astrologists, and We say 1t with depre-
~accentuation. Why they were the
most splendid and magnificent men OF the
They were the, naturalists and
the scientists. They knew all that was
You must remember that astrology
vas the mother Of astronomy, and that
,ichemy was the mother Of chemistry, and
because children are brighten than tbs
mother you do not despiss the m othsr.
1t wal the lifelong business OF these astrol.
,xers to study the stars. Twenty-Five hum
ired and fifty years before Christ was born
The wise men knew the procession Of the
,a~uinoxe,, aud they had calculated tho orbit
and the return Of the comets. Professor
Smith declares that he ID nsp they under
tood the distance OF the sun from the earth.
We find In the book OF Job that the men OF
.tla, f{pna did MT st1nDoRa tha world was fat