Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1892-08-04
GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
TALMAGE breaches vt IN
SCOTLAND.
"He That Cometh From Above Is Above
Ail"--Thc Most Conspicuous Figure In
History, the Most Exquisite Mingiing
of Lights and shades.


History, the Most Exquisite Mingling
of Lights and Shades.
LONDON, July 3, -Slnco his return from
Russia, DIR, Talmago has been literally flooded
with invitations TO address congregations and
lyceums on the subject OF his Iou noy 10 the
land OF the Car. Dr 1f,mago has boen com
pellcd TO adhere to his ORIGINAL program Dur.
ing the week he has been prcaching In the
leading Scottish cities, The sermon selected
for this week IS cntitlcd "Prcemneut" the
text being, John a;al '1io that oomoth from
above Is above all"
The most conspicuous character of
history steps out upon the platform,
The finger which, diamondcd with
light, pointed down To him from the
Bethlehem sky, was only u ratification
of the finger of prophecy, the finger of
genealogy, the finger of chronology,
the finger Of events, all five fingers
pointing in one direction, Christ is the
overlapping figure of all time. lie Is
the voS humaua in all music, the grace
fullest line in all sculpture, the most
exquisite mingling Of lights and shades
in all painting, the acmo Of all cli-
makes, the dome OF all cathedralled
splendid language.
The Greek G,phabet Is made up OF
twenty-four letters, and when Christ
compared himself to the first letter and
the last letter, the alpha and the omega,
he appropriated 20 himself all the
splcndors that you can spell out either
with those two letters and all letters
between them, II nm the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end,
the first and the last" Or, IL you
prefer the words OF the text, "abovc
ALL"
II means, after you have piled up all
Alpine and llimalaynn attitudes, the
glory Of Christ would have 90 spread its
wings and descend u thousand leagues
To touch those submits. Polion, Il high
mountain of Thcssuly, Ossa, high
mountain, and Olympus, u high noun
taini but mythology tells MS when the
giants warrcd against the gods they
piled mp these three mountains,
and from the top of them pro-
posed 90 scale the heavens; but
the height was not great enough and
there WIS II complete failure. And
after all the giants Isaiah aud Paul,
prophetic aud apostolic giants; Raphael
and Michael Angelo, artistic giants;
chcrubim and scrnphim and archangel,
celestial giants have failed 10 climb
To the top of Christ's glory, they might
all well unite in the words of the text
and shy, Gle that comcth from above
IL above all.
First, Christ must be above all else in
our preaching. There are also many
books on hoinilctics scattered through
the world that all lnymcn, ns well as
all clcrgymcn, have made up their
minds what sermons ought 10 be- That
sermon IL most clfcctul which most
pointedly puts forth Christ MS the
pardon Of all sin aud the correction
of all evil, individual, social political,
national. There Is no reason
why we should ring the end
less changes on n few phrases. There
are those that think that If an cxhorta-
ton or n discourse have frequent
mention of justification, sanctitication,
covenant of works and covenant OF
grace, that, therefore, IL must be pro-
foundly evangelical, while they are
suspicious OF discourse which pre-
scnts the same truth, but under diff
lcrent phrascology. Now, ! say there
Is nothing in all the opulent realm
Of Anglo SaXonism or all the word
treasures that we inherited from the
! Latin and the Greek and the lndo- Euro
pean, but we have right to marshal IL
| In religious discussion. Christ sets the
example. His illustrations were from
the grass, the flowers, the spittlc, the
salve, the barnyard fowl, the crystals
Of salt, rs well as from the SECS and the
| stars. and We do not propose in our
/ Sabbath school teaching and in our
pulpit address 10 Dc put on the limits
/ ] know that there lisa great deal said
/ in our day against words, as though
they were nothing. They may be mis-
used, but they have an imperial power
/ They arc the bridge between soul and
soul, between Almighty God and the
human race. What did God write
upon the tables Of stone? Words
| What did Christ utter on Mount
! Olivet? Words. Out OF what did
/ Christ strike the spark for the illumina-
ton OF the universe? Out Of words.
"Let there be light and light
was OF course, thought is the cargo
and words are only the ship; but how
1 fast would your cargo get on without
I the ship? What you need, my friends,
/ In all your work, in your Sabbath
school class, in your refornatory in
/ stitntions, and what we all need, is to
enlarge our vocabulary when we come
10 speak about God and Christ and
Heaven. We ride Il few old words
to death when there is such
| illimitable resource Shakespeare
employed fifteen thousand different
words for dramatic purposes; Milton
employed eight thousand different
words Tor poetic purposes Rufus Choate
employed over eleven thousand differ
ent words for legal purposes; but the
most of us have less than n thousand
words that we can manage, less THAI
five hundred, and that makes us so
stupid.
Jonathan Edwards preached Christ
ia the severest argument ever penned,
and John Bunyan preached Christ in
the sublimcst allegory ever composed.
Edward Payson, sick and exhausted,
icancd up against the side of the pull
pin and wept out his discourse, while
George Whitfield, with the manner
and the voice and the start of an actor,
overwhelmed his auditory. 1t would
have been different thing if Jonathan
Edwards had tried To write and dream
about the pilgrims progress to the
celestial city, or John Bunyan had at
tempted an essay on the human will.
Brighter than the light, fresher than
the fountains, deeper than the seas, are
all these Gospel themes. Song has no
melody flowers have no sweetness, sun
set sky has no color compared with
these glorious themes. These harvests
Of grace spring up quicker thanwe can
sickle them Kindling puipits with
their fire, and producing revolutions