The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-08-12
ABOVE ALL.
On Telmage Discourses on the Pro-
eminence Of Christ
An Eloquent Tribute to the Greatness and
Mercy of the Saviour-The beauties
of the Gospel Depicted in
Glowing Words.

heV. L. DehlUJ IdlIudge, IN a ldIe OlS'
course, selected for his subject the ''Pre
eminence of Christ" taking his text
from John, ill 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 a 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 humane 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
hrst 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, a high
mountain of Thessaly; Ossa, a 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 a complete
failure. And after all the giants
Isaiah and Paul, prophetic and apostolic
giants; Raphael and Michael Angelo,
artistic giants; cheru5im and seraphim
and archangel, celestial giants-have
failed to climb to the too of Christ's
glory, they might all well unite in the
words of the text and say, ''Ie that
cometh from above is all"
First, Christ must be above all else in
our preaching. There are also many
books on homiletics scattered through
the world that all laymen, as well as
ali clergymen, have madeup their minds
what sermons ought to be. That ser
mon is most etfectual which most
pointedly puts forth Christ as 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 q.
few phrases. There are those who
think that If an eXhortation or a dis
course have frequent mention of iustif-
cation, sanctifcation, covenant of works
and covenant of grace, that therefore
It must be profoundly evangelical,
while they are suspicious of 4 discourse
which presents the same truth. but IN
der different prascology. 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 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 a 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. OF course,
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 re- |
formatory 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 illim- |
liable resource. Shakespeare employed |
Is, 600 different words for dramatic pur-
poses; Milton employed 5000 different |
words for poetic purposes; Rufus Choate !
over II 200 different words for |
legal purposes; but the most of Us have |
less than 900 words that we can man |
age, less than 500, and that makes US so |
stupid
g 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 di- |
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 1 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
q 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 Christ in
the severest argument ever penned, and
John Bunyan preached Christ in the
sublimest allegory ever composed. Ed
ward Payson, sick and exhausted, |
leanad m AGAINST the side Of the ror1lrit |