Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1892-08-06
ABOVE ALL.
Dr. -Talmage Discourses on the Pre-
eminence Of Christ.
An Eloquent Tribute to tho Greatness and
Mercy OF the savlour-Thc Beauties
OF tho Gospel Depleted In
Glowing Words.

.eminence of Christ" taking his text
from John, iii, 81: "He that cometh
from above is above all" He said:
The most conspicuous character OF
history steps out upon the platform.
The finger which, diamonded with light,
pointed down to him from the Beth
lehem sky was only ratification
of the finger Of prophecy, the finger OF
genealogy, the finger of chronology, the
finger of events-all five fingers point
ing in one direction. Christ is the over
topping figure of all time. He is the
vox humana in all music, the graceful
est line in all sculpture, the most ex-
.quisite mingling of lights and shades in
all painting, the acme of all climaXes,
the dome of all cathedralled grandeur
and the peroration of all splendid Ian
guage.
The Greek alphabet is made up OF
twenty-four letters and when Christ
compared Himself to the first letter and
the last letter, the alpha and the ONE
ga, He appropriated to Himself all the
splendors that you can spell out either
with those two letters and all letters
between them. 81 am the alpha and
omega, the beginning and the end, the
first and the last" Or if you prefer the
words Of the text "above ALL"
1t means, after you have piled up all
Alpine and Himalayan attitudes, the
glory of Christ would have to spread its
wings and descend 1000 leagues to
touch those SUBMITS. Pelion, high
mountain OF Thessaly; Ossa, high
mountain, and Olympus, high mount
ain; but mythology tells us when the
giants warred against the gods they
piled up these three mountains, and
from the top of them proposed to scale
the heavens; but the height was not
great enough and there was q complete
failure. And after all the giants
Isaiah and Paul, prophetic and apostolic
giants; Raphael and Michael Angelo
artistic giants: cherubim and seraphim
and archangel, celestial giants-have
failed to climb to the top of Christ's
glory, they might all well unite in the
words of the text and say, "He that
COiuGlli lIOill lUONC 10 dii
First Christ must be above all else in
our preaching. There are also many
books on homiletics scattered through
the world that all laymen, rs well as
all clerqymen, have madeup their minds
what sermons ought to be. That SER
mon is most eifectUal which most
pointcdly pats forth Christ rs the par
don of all sin and the correction OF all
evil, individual, social, political, ma
tional. There is no reason why we
should ring the endless changes on n
few phrases There are those who
think that if an eXhortation or dis
course have frequent mention of iustif-
cation, sanctification, covenant of works
and covenant of grace, that therefore
it must be profoundly evangelical,
while they are suspicious OF discourse
which presents the same truth, but un-
der different praseology. Now, l 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 Indo-
European but we have a right to mar
shall it in religious discussion. Christ
sets the example. His illustrations
were from the grass, the flowers, the
spittle, the salve, the barnyard fowl,
the CRYSTALS of salt, as well as from the
seas and the stars; and we do not pro-
pose in our Sabbath school teaching
and in our pulpit address to be put on
the limits.
know that there is 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 are the bridge between soul and
soul, between Almighty God and the
human race. What did God write upon
the tablets of stone? Words. What
did Christ utter on Mount Olivet?
Words Out of what did Christ strike
the spark for the illumination of the
the universe? Out of words. "Let there
be light" and light was.
When we come to set forth the love
of Christ we are going to take the ten
derest phraseology wherever we find it,
and If it has never been used in that d.
rection before, all the more shall we
use it. When we come to speak of the
glory of Christ, the Conquerer, we are
going to draw our SMILES from triumph
al arch and oratorio and everything
grand and stupendous The French
navy has eighteen flags by which they
give signal; but those eighteen flags
they can put into sixty-six thousand
different combinations And l have to
tell you that these standards Of the
cross may be lifted into combinations
infinite and varieties everlasting And
let me say to young men who are after
a while going to preach Jesus Christ,
You will have the largest liberty and
unlimited resource. You only have to
present Christ in your own way.
Jonathan Edwards preached Christin
the severest argument ever penned, and
90 II. ho