The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1891-04-25
PURE L
Or. Talmage Discourses on the
Beauties Of Christianity.
Nothing in True Religion to Weary the he
uever-lHromlses to the Redeemsd-The
Only Choice For Mortals
Pointed Out,

BLDG nave come to prompt recognition.
But for the present l take up the less
valuable crystal. Job, in my text,
compares saving wisdom with a speci-
men OF topaz. An infidel chemist or
m~ineralogist would pronounce the lat
ter worth more than the former, but
Job makes an intelligent comparison,
looks at religion and then looks at the
crystal and p%ronounces the former as
OF far superior value to the latter, ex-
claiming in the words of my text, ''the
crystal cannot equal it." The crystal
Is the star of the mountain; it is the
queen of the cave; the eardrop of the
hills; 1t 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 l
want to show you that Job vas 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 other, recommending it
to all the people and to all the ages, de-
claring: 1.-THE crystal can not equal
it," In the first place l 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 crystallization and all Of
them divinely ordained.
Every crystal has mathematical pre-
cision. Gods geometry reaches through
1t, and 1t Is a square or 1t is a r~ectangle
or 1t Ii a rhomboid or in some way 1t
hath a mathematical figure. Now re-
ligion beats that in the simple fact that
spiritual accuracy is more beautiful
than material accuracy. Gods attri-
butes are exact. Gods laws exact.
Gods DEGREES exact. Gods manage
ment of the world exact. Never count.
ing wrong, though He counts the grass
blades and the stars and the sands and
the cycles. His providences never
dealing with us perpendicularly when
those providences ought to be oblique,
o laterally when they ought to be
vertical. Everything in our life ar
ranged without any possibility of mis-
take. Each life a six sided prism.
Born at the right time; dying at the
right time. There are no 'happen-so's"
in our theology. God is not an anarch-
list. Law, order, symmetry, precision,
a perfect square, a perfect rectangle, a
perfect rhombold, a perfect circle. The
edge of Gods robe of governmentnever
trays out. There are no loose screws
In the worlds machinery. 1t did not
Just happen that Napoleon was attacked
with indigestion at Borodino SO that he
became incompetent for the day. II
did not just happen that John Thomas,
the missionary, on a heather island,
waiting for an outfit and orders for an
other missionary, on a heather island,
waiting for an outfit and orders for an
other missionary tour, received that out
At and those orders in a box that fioated
ashore, while the ship and the crew
hat carried the box were never heard
of. / believe in a particular providence,
/ believe Gods geometry may be seen
in all our life more beautifully than in
crystallography. Job was right. ''The
crystal can not equal it"
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 Severus.
Vases of it are brought up from the
ruins of H~erculaneum. There were
female adornments made out OF 1t 8, 000
years ago-those adornments are found
now attached to the mummies of Egypt.
A great many commentators 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 crystal yer
the watch defending it's delicate ma
chinery, yet allowing us to see the hour
the crystal of the telescope by which
the astronomer brings distant worlds
SO near he a inspect them. o, the
triumphs Of the crystals in the cele-
brated windows Of Rouen and Sails
bury! But there is nothing SO trans
parent in a crystal as in our holy re-
ligion. It is a transparent religion.
You put 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 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, 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 transparent.
The providence that seemed dark be-
fore becomes pellucid. Now you find
God is not trying to put you down.
Now you understand why you lost that
child and why you lost your property;
it was to prepare you for eternal treas
ures. And why sickness came, 1t being
the precursor of immortal juvenescence.
And now you understand why they
lied about you and tried to drive you
hither and thither. 1t was to put you
In the glorious company Of such men as
Ignatius, who, when he went out to be
destroyed by the lions, said: 81 am the
wheat and the teeth of the wild beasts
must first grind me before / can be-
come pure bread for Jesus Christ"
All, yes, it is persecution to put you in
glorious company; and while there are
many things that you will have to post.
pone to the future world for explana-
ton, l tell you that it is the whole
tendency of your religion to unrnvel
and explain and interpret and illumine
and irradiate. Job was right. 1t Is a
glorious transparency. 1.-THE crystal
cannot equal it."
] remark again that religion sur
passes the crystal-in it's beauty. That
lump Of crystal is put under the magni-
flying glass of the crystallographer and
he eees in it indescribable beauty
snow drift and ~splinters of hoar frost
and corals and wreaths and stars and
crowns and ca~stellations of conspicuous
beauty. The fact is that crystal Is so
beautiful that | can think of but one
thing in all the universe that is so beau
tiful, and that is the religion of the
Bible. No wonder this Bible repre-
sents that religion as the daybreak, as
the apple blossoms, as the glittering OF
a kings banquet 1t Is the joy of the
whole earth. People talk too much
about their cross and not enough about
their crown. Do you know the Bible
mentions q cross but twenty-seven
times while it mentions a crown eighty
times?
Ask that old man what he thinks of
religion. He has been a close observer.
He has been culturing an aesthetic taste.
He has seen the sunrises of half a CEN
fury. He has been an early riser. He
has been an admirer of canoes and
corals and all kinds of beautiful things.