Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-08-12
REV. DIR. IALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIyINE'S sun
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Preeminent."

TEXT: 'He that conleth from ubore /.
dbove dU."-John ill.,, 81.
The most cons cicuous 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--an five fingers pointing
in one direction. Christ is the overtopping
figure OF all time. He is the vox humana in
all music, the gracefulest line in all sculp-
ture. the most exquisite mingling of lights
and shades in all painting the acme of all
climaxes, the dome of all cathed-aled grand
eur and the peroration Of all splendid Ian
guage.
The Greek alphabet is made I'D of twenty
four letters, and when Christ compared
Himself to the first letter and the last letter,
the alpha and the omega, He appropriated
to Himself all the splendors that you can
spell out either with those two letters and
all letters between them. II am the Alpha
and the Omega the beginning and the end
the first and the last" Or il YOU prefer the
words Of the text "above 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
SUBMITS. FELTON, high mountain OF Thes-
sally; Ossa, a high mountain, and Olympus,
a 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-Isaiah and Paul,
prophetic and apostolic giants; Raphael and
Michael Angelo, artistic giants; cherubim
and seraphim and archangeI, celestial
giants-have failed to climb to the top of
Christs glory, they might all we'll unite in
the words OF the text and say, "He that
cometh from above is above all"
First, Christ must be above all else in our
preaching. There are SO many books on
homietics scattered through the world that
all Iaymen, as wei! as all clergymen, have
made up their minds what sermons ought to
be. That sermon is most effectual 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 few phrases. There are
those who think that if an exhortation or a
discourse have frequent mention of justifi-
cation, sanctification, covenant of works
and covenant of grace, that therefore it
must be profoundly evangelical, while they
are suspicious or q discourse which presents
the same truth, but under different phrase
ology.
Now. 1 say there is nothing in all the opu-
lent realm Of Anglo-Saxonism 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
our Sabbath-school teaching and in our pull
pit address to be put on the limits.
L know that there Is a 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
HYa1A hnS lokr~
mighty God and the human race. What did
God write upon the tables of stones? Words.
What did Christ utter on Mount Oliver
Words. Out of what did Christ strike the
spark for the illumination of the universe7
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 shipP
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 for
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 VIII CHI they give sig
nal but those eighteen flags they can put
into sxty-six thousand different combina-
tions. And | 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 sublimest
allegory ever composed. Edward Payson,
sick and exhausted, leaned up against the
side OF the pulpit and wept out his discourse.
While George Whitefeld, with the manner.
and the voice, and the start Of actor,
overwhelmed his auditory. It 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 pulpits with
their fire, and producing revolutions with
their power, lighting up dying beds with
their glory, they are the sweetest thought
for the poet, and they are the most thrilling
illustration for the orator, and they offer