The Fort Worth gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-189?, 1891-04-23
JOBS COMPARISON.
Rev. DR.. Talmage's Sunday
Evening Sermon.
"CRYSTAL CANNOT EQUAL IT."
Jobs Exclamation Upon Comparing Religion
and Crystal His Text.
He Takes Occasion to Remark That the
Number of Pockets You Picked or
Chickens Stole Makes Poor
Prayer Meeting Rhetoric.
"CRYSTAL CANNOT EQUAL IT,"
A BRILLIANT RELIGION.

BRILLIANT RELIGION.
Special TO the Gazette.
New York. Anril 19-The eagerness to
hear DR. TaImagc's Sermons at the Christ
ian Herald services on Sunday evenings IN
this city continues undated. As usual
there WAS this evening dense mass OF peo-
pie waiting outside the Academy Of Music
long before the hour for commencement,
and every seat in the huge building was oc
cupied in Few minutes after the doors
We're opened. DR.. Talmage had preached
to ar immense audience III the morning IN
the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His
text was: The crystal cannot equal 1t,
job xvii, !.
Many of the precious stones of the Bible
have come to prompt recognition. But for
sIhe present | take up the less valuable crys-
stal. JOB, in my text, compares saving wis
dom with a specimen of topaz. An lntldel
chemist or uineralogist would pronounce
the latter worth more than the former, but
JOB makes IN intelligent comparison, looks
al religion and then looks at the crystal and
pronOunces the former as OF far superior
value 10 the latter, eXclaiming i'll the words
OF my text,
THE CRYSTAL CANNOT EQUALIT."
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 tiuSling
among the pendants Of the chandeliers OF
a palace. The crystal IS the star OF the
mountain: il IS the queen Of the cave; 1t
is the eardrop 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
YOU that lob WIS 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 lat
ter, recommending it to all the people and
to all the ages, declaring: The crystal
cannot equal II" In the first place l re-
mark THAI religion is superior to the crystal
in cNactness. The shapeeSs 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 CryStdliZatiOn and all of them di-
whey ordained. Every crystal has mathe-
NAUTICAL precision. Gods geometry reaches
through il. and it Is square or 1t Is Il rec
tauglc or il Is 4 rhOmbOd or IL some way 1t
hath :. mathematical figure.
Now RELIGION BEATS THAT
in the simple fact that spiritual accuracy is
more beautiful than material accuracy.
God 5 attributes are exact. Gods law eX-
act. Cod ; DEGREES exact. Gods manage
mcnt OF the world exact Never counting
and the stars and the sands and the cycles.
His prOvidCnccS never dealing with us per
pcudiCulariy when those prOVldenceS ought
10 ne ObliQue. nor lateral when they ought
to &c vertical. Everything in our life AZ
ranged without any possibility Of mistake.
Each life Is a SiN-sided prism. Born at the
right time: dying 1T the right time. There
are no 'happen-sos'' in our theology II
thought this was a slpshoG universe |
would go crazy. God is not an anarchist.
Law. order, symmetry, precision, perfect
square perfect rectan9le, a perfect rhom-
bold. IA 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
BorOdnO 50 that he became incompetent for
the day. Il 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 out
fit and those orders IN Il box that tioated
ashore, while the ship and the crew that
carried the box
wERE NEVER HEARD OF.
The barking OF +. ". RObertson's dog, he
tells Us, led TO Il line OF events which
brought him from the army into the Chris
tiau ministry. where he served God with
world-renowned usefulness. 1t did not
merely happen SO. l believe in particular
providence. l believe Gods geometry may
be seen in all our life more beautifully than
in crystallography. Job was right. The
crystal cannot equal it
Again l remark that religion is superior
to the crystal in Transparency. We know
not when or by whom glass was first dis
covered. Beads of it have been found in
the tomb of Alexander Severus. Vases of it
are brought up from the ruins of Hercula-
ueum There were female adOrnmentS
made out OF it 5000 years agO-thoSc adorn-
mentS found now attached to the mumnies
Of Egypt. \ great many commentators be-
liavc that my text means glass. What
would we DO without the crystal? The
crystal in the window to keep cut 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 telescope by which the astronomer
brings distant worlds so near he can in
spect them? Oh, the triumphhfof the crys-
tails in the celebrated windows of Rouen
and Salisbury! But there is nothing SO
transparent III crystal as
N OUR HOLY RELIGION.
1t is Il transparent religion. You put 1t
to YOUR eye and You sec man-hiS sin, his
soul. his destiny You look at Cod and you
see something of the grandeur of his char
acter. II IS a transparent religion. Inf
dels tell Us it IS Opaque. 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 10 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 noun
taius of the Bible comes out: Sinai. the
mountain of the law; Pisgah, the mountain
Of prospect; Olivet. the mountain of in
Struction; Calvary, the mountain of sacri-
fee. All the rivers of the Bible come
out: Hdehel, or the river of paradiSaical
beauty: Jordan, or the river of holy chrism;
Cherith, or the river of prophetic supply:
Nile or the river of palaces; and the pure
river of life from under the throne, clear as
crystal While reading this bible after our
eyes have been touched by grace, we find it
all transparent, and the earth rocks, now
with crucitiXion agony and now with judg-
meut terror, and Christ appears in some of
his 2j6 titles. as far as l can count them
the bread. the rock, the captain, the COM
mander, the conQueror, the star, and on
and beyond any capacity of mine to re-
hearSe them.
TRANSPARENT RELIGION!
The providence that seemed dark before |
becoming pellucid. Now you find God is not |
trying TO put you down. Now you under |
stand why you lost that child and why You |
lost your property: it was to prepare you !
for eternal treasures. And why sickness |
came; it being the precursor of immortal |
ND nd and /