Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1892-01-02
REV. DR.. TALMAGR.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun.
day Sermon.
subjects "rhs NATIVITY.

Subject: "The Nativity
TEXT: "And they came NTH haste, and
/ found Mary and Joseph. aud the Babe
| lying in a nsdnger."-Luke H., Is.
| The black window shutters Of December
night were thrown open, and some of the
/ best singers of a world where they all sing
stood there, and putting back the drapery Of
| cloud, chanted a peace anthem, until all the
echoes of bill and valley applauded and en-
! cored the Hallelujah chorus. Come, let us
l go into that Christmas scene as though we
had never before worshiped at the manger.
Here is a Madonna worth looking at. /
| wonder not that the frequent name
| in all lands and in all Christian
1 centuries is Mary. And there are
Marys in palaces and Marys in cabins,
| and though German and French and Italian
/ and Spanish and English pronouncs it diff
ferently, they are all namesakes of the ons
| whom we find on bed OF straw, with her
pale face against the soft cheek of Christ in
the night of the Nativity. All the great
painters have tried on canvas to present
Mary and her child and the incidents of
that most famous night Of the worlds his
4 tory. Yet all of them were copies of st.
I Matthew's Madonna and Luke's Madonna,
the inspired Madonna of the Old Book, which
we had put into our hands when we were
infants. 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 houorei the brute
creation. You cannot get into that Bethle
hem barn without going past the camels,
the mules the dogs the oxen. The brutes
OF that stable heard the first cry of the in
FAINT Lord. Some of the old painters repre-
sent the oxen and camels kneeling that night
/ before the newborn babe And well might
they kneell 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. during the
first few days and nights Of His life on earth,
be surrounded by the dumb bsasts2
| Not kennel in all the centuries not a
birds nest not WORKOUT horse on tow
path, nor herd freezing in the poorly built
/ COW pen, not freight car in summer time
bringing the beeves to market without water
through thousand miles of agony, not a
surgeons room witnessing the struggles of
] tox and rabbit or pigeon or dog in the hor-
Fors of vivisection but has an interest in the
TACT that Christ was born in a stable sur
| rounded by brutes. 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 by right Of possession. They
have also paid rent for the places they occu-
pied. What an army of defense all over the
and are the faithful watchdogs 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.
Standing, then, as | imagine now do in
that Bethlehem night, with an infant Christ
on the one side and the speechless creatures
Of God on the other cry look out how you
strike the rowel into that horses side. Take
of that curbed bit from that bleeding
mouth. Remove that saddle from that raw
back. Shoot not for fun that bird that is
too small for food. Forgstnot to put water
IN the cage of that canary. Throw out
some crumbs to those birds caught too far
north in the winters inclemency. Arrest
that man who's making that one horse draw
. load heavy enough for three Rush in upon
that scene where boys are torturing cat
Of transfxipg butterfly and grasshopper.
Drive not OF that old robin for her nest is a
mothers cradle. and under her wing there
may be three or four musicians of the sky in
training. No more did Christ show interest
in the botanical world when He said Con
slider the lilies " than He showed sympathy
for the pathological world when He said
Behold the fowls OF the air, ard the quad
rupedal world when He allowed Himself 10 be
called in one place lion and in another
place a lamb. Meanwhile may the Christ
of the Bethlehem cattle pen have mercy on
the suffering stockyards that are preparing
meat for our American households.
Behold also in this Bible scene, how on
that Christmas night God honore1 child
hood. Christ might have made His first
visit TO our world in cloud, as He will de-
scend on His next visit in a cloud. In what
a chariot of illumined vapor He might have
rolled down the sky escorted by mounted
cavalry, with lightning for drawn sword.
Elijah had carriage OF fire to take Him up;
why not Jesus carriage oil fire TO fetch
Him dowH, Or over the arched bridge OF
a rainbow the Lord might have descended.
Or Christ might have had His mortality
built up on eartl out of the dust OF a garden,
as was Adam, in full manhood at the start,
without the Introductory feeblenesS OF in
fancy. No. mo- Childhood was to be hon
orcd by that event. He must have a child's
light limbs, aud a child's dimplei hand, and
a chili's beaming eye, and child's tiaxen
hair. and babyhOo1 was to bs honored for all
time 10 come, AMI a cradle was to mean more
than grave Mighty Godl May the re
Election of that one child's face be seen IN all
iafantile faces.
Enough have all those fathers and mothers
on hand il they have child in the house A
throne, crown, a scepter a kingdom un-
der charge. Be careful how you strike him
across the head Earring the brain What
you say to him will be centennial and mil
lenial, and hundred years and thousand
years will not stop the echo and re-echo. Do
not say, at is only child" Rather say, ut
is only an immortal" 1t is only a master
piece of Jehovah.
1t was child in Naaman's kitchen that
al fha
might go and get cured of the leprosy, which
at his seventh plunge in the Jordan was left
at the bottom of the river. 1t was to the
cradle of leaves in which a child was laid
rocked by the Nile, that Goi called the at
tention of history. 1t was suck child that
evoked Christ's curative sympathies. It was
child that Christ set in the midst of the
squabbling disciples to teach the lesson Of
humility. Weare informed that wolf and
leopard and lion shall be yet SO domesticatei
ttat little child shall lead them. child
decided Waterloo, showing the army
Of Butcher how they could take
short cut through the fields.
when. it the old road had been followed, the
fruSSian general would have come up too
late to save the destinies Of Europe. And
to-day the child is to decide all the great
battles make all the laws, settle all the des.
TIMES and usher in the worlds salvation or
destruction. Men, women, nations, all earth
anu all heaven, behold the child Is there
any velvet so soft as child's chesk2 Is there
any sky so blue as child's eye? Is there any
music so sweet as the child's voice? Is there
any plume SO wavy as child's hairt
Notice also that in this Bible night scene
God honored science. Who are the three
wise men kneeling before the Divine Iu-
FAINT? Not Doors, not ignoramuses, but
Caspar, Belthasar and Melchior, men who
knew all that was to be known. They were
the Isaac Newtons and Herschels and Far
radays of their time. Their alchemy was
the forerunner of our sublime chemistry,
their astrology the mother of our magnifi-
cent astronomy. They had studied stars,
studied metals, studied physiology, studied
everything. And when l ses these scien-
lists bowling before the beautiful babe 1
see the prophecy of the time when all the
telescopes and microscopes and all the Ley
den jars and all the electric batteries and all
shall bow to Jesus. 1t is much that way al
ready. Where is thu college that doss not
have morning prayers, that bowling at the
manger2 Who have been this greatest ply
sicians?
Omitting the names of the living lest we
should be invidious have we not had among
them Christian men like our own joseph {.
Hutchinson and Rush and Valentine Mott
have been our greatest scientists? Joseph
Henry, who lived and died in the faith of the
Gospels, and Agassiz, who, standing with
his stu tents among tina nils took OF
his hat and said, Young gentlemen.
before we study these ROCKS let us pray
Tor wisdom to the God who made the
rocks - To-day tha srraotas+ doa+o.- "a