The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1892-08-18
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
rEfG BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: 'Pre-Eminent Preached
in ondon.

TEXT: 'He that conleh from above 1
adore aH."-John ill.,, 81.
The most CONSPICUOUS character of history
steps out upon the platform. The finger
which, diamonded with light pointed down
to Him from the Bethlehem sky was only a
ratification OF the finger OF prophecy, the
finger of genealogy, the finger of chronology,
the finger of events-ali five fingers pointing
in one direction. Christ is the overlapping
figure of all time. He is the vox humana in
all music, the gracefulest line in all sculp-
gture the most exquisite mingling of lights
and shades in all painting, the acme OF all
climaxes, the dome of all cathedraled grand
eur 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 apd the omega, lie appropriated
to Himself all the spieudors that you can
spell out either with those two letters and
all letters between them. 81 am the Alpha
and the Omega, the beginning and the end,
the first and the last" Or, if YOU prefer the
words of the text, 'tabove ALL"
1t means, after you have piled up all Al.
pine and Himalayan attitudes, the glory of
Christ would have to spread its wings and
descend thousand leagues to touch those
SUBMITS. Pelion, high mountain of Thes-
sally; Ossa, high mountain, and Olympus,
high mountain; 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 a complete failure.
And after all the giants-lsaiah and Paul,
prophetic and apostolic giants; Raphael and
Michael Angelo, artistic giants; cherubm
and seraphim and archangei, celestial
giants-have failed to Climb to the top of
ietje mir oil
the words of the text and say, "te that
cometh from above is above all"
First, Christ must be above all else in our
preaching. There are SO many books on
homiletics scattered through the world that
all laymen, well as all clergymen, have
made up their minds what sermons ought to
be. That sermon is most ehectual which
most pointedly puts forth Christ as the
pardon of all sin and the correction of all
evil. individual, social, political, National.
There is no reason why we should ring the
endless changes on a few phrases There are
those who think that if an exhortatiou or
discourse have frequent mention OF justii-
cation, sanctifcation, covenant of works
and covenant of grace, that therefore it
must be profoundly evangelical, while they
are suspicious of a discourse which presents
the same truth, but under different phrase
ology.
Now, say there is nothing in all the opu-
lent realm of Anglo Saxonsm or all the
word treasurers that we inherited from the
Latin and the Greek and the Indo-European
but we have right to marshal it IN relig-
ious 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 propose IN
our Sabbath-school teaching and IN our pull
pit 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 lnisused, but they
have an imperial power They are the
bridge between soul and soul, between Al
mighty God and the human race. What did
God write upon the tables of stones? Words.
What did Christ utter on Mount Olivet?
Words. Out of what did Christ strike the
spark for the illumination 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 fast
would your cargo get on without the ship?
What you need, my friends, in all your
work, in your Sabbath school class, in your
reformatory institutions and what we all
need is to enlarge our vocabulary when we
come to speak about God and Christ and
heaven. We ride few old words to death
when there is such illimitable resource.
Shakespeare employed fifteen thousand diff
ferent words for dramatic purposes Milton
employed eight thousand different words for
poetic purposes, Rufus Choate employed
over eleven thousand different words Tor
legal purposes, but the most of us have less
than thousand words that we can manage,
less than five hundred, and that makes us so
stupid.
When we come to set forth the love Of
Christ we are going to take the tenderest
phraseology wherever we find it, and if it
has never been used in that direction before,
all the more shall we use it. When we come
to speak of the glory of Christ the Conquer
or, we are going to draw our SMILES from
triumphal arch and oratorio and everything
grand and stupendous. The French navy
have eighteen flags by which they give sig
nal; but those eighteen flags they can put
into sixty-six thousand different combina-
tions. And l have to tell you that these
standards of the cross may be lifted into
combinations infinite and varieties everlast-
ing. And let me say to young men who are
after awhile going to preach Jesus Christ,
you will have the largest liberty and I'M
limited resource. You only have TO present
Christ IN your own way.
Jonathan Edwards preached Christ in the
severest argument ever penned, and john
Bunyan preached Christ in the subimest
allegory ever composed. Edward Payson,
sick and exhausted, leaned up against the
side OF the pulpit and wept out his discourse
ME OecrBe w hlteneld, 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 pill
grim's progress to the celestial city or John
bunyan had attempted 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 sunset sky has no color
compared with these glorious themes. These
harvests OF grace spring up quicker than we
can sickle them. Kindling pulpts with
their fire, and producing revolutions with
their power, lighting up dying beds with
their glory, they are the sweetest thought
Tor the poet, and they are the most thrilling
illustration for the orator, and they offer
the most intense scene for the artist, and
they are to the ambassador of the sky all en-
thusiasm. Complete pardon for direct
guilt. Sweetest comfort for ghastliest
agony. Brightest hope for grimmest death.
Grandest resurrection for darkest sepulcher.
Oh, what gospel to preach! Christ over
all In it. His birth. His suffering, His mira
cles, His parallels, His sweat, His tears, His
blood, his atonement, His intercession, what
gnrious thamesY DO we exercise faith?
Chfst Is It's object. Do we have love? 1t
fasten on Jesus. Have we a fondness for
the chUchf II is because Christ died for it.
Have we hope of heaven? 1t is because
Jesus wen ahead, the herald and the fore