The Hazel Green herald. [volume] (Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Ky.) 1885-19??, 1892-01-29
HALLELUJAHS.
IN All Lands These Grand Strains
Proclaim
r.thishem the birthplace OF Jesus Christ
christmas Sermon by Rev. L. De-
witt TRlmage, ID. ID.


they came in haste, and found Maryland
Joseph and the Babe lying in a
manger"
The black window-shutters of De.
Gem Der night were thrown open, and
some Of the best singers of the world
where they all sing stood there. and,
putting back the drapery of cloud,
chanted peace anthem, until all the
echos of hill and valley applauded and
encored the hallelujah chorus Come,
let us go into that Christmas scene as
though we had never before worshiped
at the manger. Here is Madonna worth
looking at.
wonder not that the most frequent
pane in all lands and all Christian CEN
turtles is Mary. And there are Marys
in palaces and Marys in cabins, and
though German and French and Italian
and Spanish and English pronounce it
differently, they are all namesakes of
the one whom we find on bed of
straw, with her pale face against the
boft cheek of Christ in the
night of nativity, All the great
painters have tried, on canvass, to
y
cidents of the most famous night of the
worlds history. Raphael, in three diff
ferent masterpieces celebrated them.
Tintoretto and Ghirlandajo surpassed
themselves in the alteration of the
Magi Correggio needed to do nothing
more than his Madonna to become i'm
mortal The Madonna of the Lily, by
Leonardo da Vinci, will kindle the adj
miration of all ages.
But all the galleries of Dresden are
forgotten when | think of the small
room of that gallery containing the
Sistine Madonna Yet all of them
were copies of St Matthew's Madonna,
, and Luke's Madonna, the inspired Ma
donna of the Old Book, which we had
put into our hands when we were in
fants, and that we hope to have under
our heads when we die. behold, in the
first place, that on the first night of
Christ's life God honored the brute
creation. You can not get into that
Bethlehem barn without going past the
camcls, the mules, the dogs, the oxen.
The brutes of that stable heard the first |
cry of the infant Lord. Some of the |
old painters represent the oxen and
camels kneeling that night before the
newborn babe.
And well might they kneel! Have
you ever thought that Christ came, |
among other things to alleviate the |
sufferings of the brute creation? Was |
it not appropriate that he should, dur
ing the first few days and nights of his |
life on earth, be surrounded by the |
dumb beasts, whose moan and plant
and believing have for ages been a
prayer to God for the arresting of their |
fortunes and the righting of their |
wrongs? 1t did not merely happen so"
that the unintelligent creatures of God |
should have been that night in close |
neigh borhood.
Not kennel in all the centuries not |
a birds nest, not a worn out horse on |
tow path, not herd freezing in the |
poorly built cow pen, not freight car
in summer time bringing the beeves to
market without water through a thou |
sand miles of agony, not surgeons
room witnessing the struggles OF fox or
rabbit, or pigeon, or dog, in the horrors
of viviscction, but has an interest in the
fact that Christ was born in stable,
surrounded by brutcs- He remembers
that night. and the prayer he heard in
their pitiful moan, he will answer in
the punishment of those who maltreat
the dumb brutcs They surely have as
much right in this world as we have
In the first chapter of Genesis You
may see that they were placed on the
earth before man was, the fish and
fowl created the fifth day, and the
quadrupeds the morning OF the sixth
day. and man not until the afternoon
of that day. The whale, the eagle, the
lion, and all the lesser creatures OF their
kind, were predecessors OF the human
family. They have the world Ivy right
of possession.
They have also paid rent for the
places they occupied What an army
of defense all over the land are the
faithful watch-dogs. And who can tell
what the world owes to the horse, and
camel, and OK, for transportation" And
robin and lark have, by the cantatas
with which they have filed orchard and
forest, more than paid for the few
grains they have picked up for their
sustenance
When you abuse any creature OF God
you strike its Creator, and you insult
the Christ who, though He might have
been welcomed into life by princes and
taken his first infantile slumber amid
Tyrian plush and canopied couches, and
ripping waters from royal aaueducts
dripping into basins of ivory and pearl
chose to be born on the level with
cows horn, or a camers hoof, or dogs