Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-10-07
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
.rHE, CEOoKYN DIVINEs SUNDAY
SERMON.
Subj ect: "AlI in All"

= 4
slams ill.,, II.
Returned after the most eventful summer
OF my life, must shortly and as soon | re-
cover from the sea voyage give you an ac<
count of our mission of bread to famine.
stl 1cken Russia, and of my preaching tour
through Germany, England, Scotland and
Ireland: but my first sermon on reaching
here must be a hosanna Of gratitude TO
Christ, and from the text have chosen, I
have found that the greatest name in the
ocean shipping, and from Liverpool TO Mos
cow. and from Moscow to London and Ed
inburgh and Belfast and Dublin, is Jesus.
Every age of the world has had its his
torians, its philosophers, its artists, its
thinkers and its teachers. Were there his
tories to be written there has always been q
Moses. or a Herodotus. or Aenophon, or
Josephus to write them. We're there poems
70 be constructed there has always been a
Job or a Homer to construct them. Were
there thrones lustrous and powerful to be
lifted there has always been David or a
Caesar to raise them. Were there teachers
demanded for the intellect and the hearts
there has been Socrates, and a Eeno, and
a Cleanthes, and Marcus Antoninus COM
ing forth on the grand and glorious mission.
Every age Of the world has had its trlumphs
of reason and morality. There has not been
a single age of the world which has not had
some decided system Of religion.
The Platonism. orientalism, stoicism,
Brahminsm and Buddhism, considering the
ages in which they were established, were
not lacking in ingenuity and force. Now, in
this line of benefcent institutions and OF
noble men, there appears parsonage more
wonderful than any predecessor. He came
from family without any royal or aristo-
cratic Dretension. He came GaIilean me-
chanic. He had no advantage from the
schools. There were people beside Him day
after day who had no idea that He was going
to be anything remarkable or do anything
remarkable. Yet Notwithstanding all this,
and without any title or scholarly profession
or flaming rhetoric He startled the world
with the strangest announcements, ran In
collision with solemn priest and proud ruler,
and with voice that rang through temple
and palace and over ships deck and noun
tain TOP exclaimed, ''L am the light of the
world ~
Men were taken all aback at the idea that
that hand, yet hard from the use OF the ak
the saw aL1 adj and ..hatchet, should wave
the scepter of authority, and that upon that
brow from which they had so often seen
Him wipe the sweat Of toll, there would yet
come the crown of unparalleled splendor
and Of universal dominion. We all know
how difficult it is to think that anybody
who was at school with US in boyhood has
got to be anything great or famous, and no
wSuder that those who had been boys with
Christ in the streets of Nazareth and seen
Him in after years in the days Of His COM
plete obscurity. should have been very slow
to acknowledge Christ's wonderful mission.
From this humble point the stream Of life
flowed out. At irs.; it was Just faint rill
hardly able to find it's way down the ROCK
but the tears of a weeping Christ added to
its volume, and it flowed on until by the
beauty and greenness of the banks you
might know the path the crystal stream was
taking. On ana on, until the lepers were
brought down and washed of their leprosy
and the dead were lifted into the water that
they might have life, and pearls of joy and
promise were gathered from the brink, and
lnnumerable churches gathered on either
bank and the tide flows on deeper and
stronger and wider until it rolls into the
river from under the throne Of God, min
Cling biiow with billow, and brightness with
brightness, and JOY with JOY, and hosanna
with hOsanna.
was looking at some of the paintings of
the artist Mr.. kenseit. l saw some pic
lures that were just faint outlines; in some
places you would see only the branches of a
tree and no trunk; and in another case the
trunk and no branches. He had not finished
the work. 1t would have taken him days
and months perhaps to have completed it.
Well, my friends, in this world we get only
the faintest outline of what Christ IS. 1t
will take all eternity to fill up the picture
so loving, kind, so mercifuL so great!
Paul does not, in this chapter, say of Christ
He is good, OF He is loving, or He is patient,
or He is kind, but in His exclamation Of the
text he embraces everything when he says,
''Christ is all and in all"
remark in the first place, Christ is everY-
thing in the Bible. I do not care where
open the Bible, find Jesus. In whatever
poth l start, l come after while to the
Bethlehem manger. l go back to the old
dispensation, and see lamb on the altar and
say, ''Rehold the Lamb of God which taketh
away the sin of the worldp' Then go and
see the mama provided for the Israelites in
the wilderness, and say, Jesus the bread of
life" Then look at the rock which was
smitten by the prophets rod, and, as the
water gushes out, I say, cit is Jesus, the
fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness."
go back and look at the writings or job
and hear him exclaim, AZ know that my
Reedeemer liveth." Then I go to Ezekiel
and l find Christ presented there as "a
plant OF renown," and then I turn over to
Isaiah and Christ is spoken of las q sheep
before the shearers." It is Jesus all the way
between Genesis and Malachi. Then turn
over in the New Testament and it is Christ
in the parable, it is Christ in the miracle. il
is Christ In the evangelist's story il is
Christ in the apostles epistles and it is
Christ in the trumpet peal of the Apocalypse.
l know there are great many people who
do not find Christ in the Bible.
Here is a man who studies the Bible as a
historian. Well. if you come as historian,
you will find in this book how the world was
made, how the seas fed to their places, how
empires were established, how nation fought
with nation, javelin ringing against barbe.
geon, until the earth was CHASTITY with the
dead You will see the coronation of princes,
the triumph of conquerors, and the world
turned upside down and back again and
down again. cleft anu SCARED with great
agon1es OF earthquake and tempest and bat
tie 1t is wonderful history, putting to
the blush all others in the accuracy of its
recital and in the stupendous events it 10
cords. Homer andssThucydides and GibboE
could make great stories out of little events.