The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-10-01
HOME AGAIN.
deV. DR.. Talmage Returns from His
European Tour
And breaches to Vast Congregation at
the Brooklyn Tabernacle-A Sermon
which Skeptics Should Read and
Think About-Christ in
Everything.

Or. Talmage was greeted with most
generous welcome by a vast congrega-
ton which assembled to hear him
preach his first sermon after his return
from his European tour. The subject
was "All in All. Text, Colossians v, ii:
"Christ is all and in all"
Returned after the most eventful sum-
mer of my life, must shortly, and as
soon as I recover from the sea voyage,
give you an account of our mission of
bread to famine-stricken Russia, and
of my preaching tour through Ger
many, 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
/ have found that the greatest name in
the ocean-shipping, and from Liverpool
to Moscow, and from Moscow to Lon
don, and Edinburg and Belfast and
Dublia. is Jesus.
Every age of the world has had its
historians, its philosophers, its artists,
its thinkers and it's teachers. Were
there histories to be written, there has
always been Moses, or a Herodotus, or
a Xenophon, or Josephus to write
them. Were there poems to be con-
structed, there has always been Job
or a Homer to construct them. Were
there thrones, lustrous and powerful.
to be lifted, there has always been
David or a Cesar to raise them. Were
there teachers demanded for the intel
1ect and the hearts, there has been
Socrates, and a Zeno, and a Cleanthes,
and Marcus Antonius coming forth on
the grand and glorious mission. Every
age of the world has had it's triumphs of
reason and morality. There has not
been single age of the world which
has not had some decided system of re-
Egion. The Platonism, Orientalism,
Stoicism, Brahminism and Buddhism,
considering the ages in which they were
established, were not lacking in inge-
nuity and force. Now, in this line of
benefcent institutions and of noble
men, there appeared parsonage more
wonderful than any predecessor. He
came from a family without any royal
or aristocratic prete nsion. He had no
advantage from the schools. There
We're 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
a voice that rang through temple and
palace, and over ships deck and noun
tain top, exclaimed ST 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, the adze and Ratchet, should
wave the scepter of au thority, 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 anybod.y who was at
school with us in boyhood has got to be
anything great or famous; and no won
der that those who had been boys with
Christ in the streets of Nazareth and
seen Him in after years in the days of
His complete obscurity, should have
been very slow to acknowledge Christ's
wonderful mission. ,.~.
From this humble point the stream OF
life flowed out. At first it was just
faint rill, hardly able to find it's way
down the rock, but the tears of a weep
ing Christ added to its volume; and it
flowed on until, by the beauty and
greenness of the banks, you might
know the path the crys tai stream was
taking. On and on, until the lepers
were brought down and washed off
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 innumer-
able churches 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, mingling bill
low with billow, and brightness with
brightness, and joy with joy, and no
sauna with hosanna!
was looking at some of the paint
ings of the artist, Mr.. Kensett. / saw
some pictures that were just faint out
lines; 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. It would have taken him days
and months, perhaps, to have completed
it. Well, my friend, in this world we
get only the faintest outline of what
Christ is. It will take all eternity to
fill up the picture-so loving, SO kind,
so merciful, so great Paul does not, in
this chapter, say of Christ He is good,
or He is loving, or He is patient, or He
is kind; but in his exclamation of the
text he embraces everything when he
saws, Christ is all and in all. ~
I remark, in the first place, Christ is
everything IN the Bible. I do not care
where I open tie Bible, find Jesus. In
whatever path I start, come, after a
while, to the Bethlehem manger. go
back to the old dispensation, and see
lamb on the altar, and say: ''Behold
the Lamb of God which taketh away
the sin of the world" Then 1 go and
see the mama provided for the Israel
ties in the wilderness, and say: ''Jesus,