The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1892-08-02

five hundred, and that makes as SO
stupid.
When we come to set forth the love
Of Christ we are going to take the ten
deFest phraseology wherever we ind 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 cOnQueror, we are
going to draw our SMILES from tn
umphal arch and oratorio and every
thing grand and stupendOus. The French
navy have eighteen flags by which they
give signal; but those eighteen flags
they can put into sixty-six thousand
different combinations And l 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
awhile going to preach Jesus Christ,
you will have the largest liberty and
unlimited resource. You only have to
present Christ in your own way.
EVERY MAN HATH HIS PROPER GIFT OF
GOD.
Jonathan Edwards preached Christ in
the severest argument ever penned, and
John Bunyan preached Christ in the sub
FINEST allegory ever composed. Edward
Payson, sick and exhausted, leaned up
against the side of the pulpit and wept
ont his discourse, while George White
field, with the manner, and the voice,
and the start of an actor, overwhelmed
his auditory It would have been diff
ferent thing if Jonathan Edwards had
tried to write and dream about the pill
9rim'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, sun
set sky has no color compared with these
glorious themes. These harvests of grace
spring up quicker than we can sickle
them. Kindhng 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
the most intense scene for the artist, and
they are to the ambassador of the sky
all enthusiasm. Complete pardon for
hest agony. Brightest hope for grim
NEST death. Grandest resurrection for
darkest sepulcher.
Oh, what gospel to preach! Christ
over all in it. His birth, his suffering,
his miracles, his parallels, his sweat, his
tears, his blood, his atonement, his IN
tercession, what glorious themes! Do we
exercise faith? Christ is its object. Do
we have love? 1t fastens on Jesus.
Have we fondness for the church? It
is because Christ died for it. Have we
hope of heaven? 1t is because Jesus
went ahead, the herald and the forerun-
ner.
The royal robe of Demetrius was so
costly, so beautiful, that after he had
put it off no one ever dared put it on;
but this robe of Christ, richer than that,
the poorest and the wanest and the
worst may wear. Where sin 8bounded
grace may much more abound"
"Oh, my sins, my SINS" said Martin
Luther to Staupitz; my sins, my sins!"
The fact is that the brawny German
student had found Latin Bible that
had made him quake, and nothing else
ever did make him quake; and when he
found how, through Christ, he was par
doned and saved he wrote to friend,
saying: Gone over and join Us great
and awful sinners saved by the grace of
God. You seem to be only slender
sinner, and you don't much extol the
mercy of God: but we who have been
such very awful sinners praise his grace
the more now that we have been re-.
deemed"
Can it be that you are so desperately
egotistical that you feel yourself in first
rate spiritual trim. and that from the
root of the hair to the tip of the toe yo,,
are scarless and immaculate? What
you need is looking glass, and here it
is in the Bible. Poor and wretched and
miserable and blind, and naked from
the crown of the head to the sole of the
foot, full Of wounds and putrefying
sores. No health IN Gis. And then take
the fact that Christ gathered up all the
notes against us and paid them and
then offered US the receipt.
And how much we need him IN our
sorrowsl We are independent of cir
cumstances if we have his grace. Why,
he made Paul sing in the dungeon, and
under that grace st. John from desolate
Patmos heard the blast of the spocalyp-
tic trumpets. After all other candles
have been snuffed out, this is the light
that gets brighter and brighter unto the
perfect day; and after. under the hard
boots Of calamity, all the pools of
worldly enjoyment have been trampled
into deep mire, at the foot of the eternal
rock the Christian, from cups of granite,
lily trimmed and vine covered, puts out
the thirst of ais soul. 49,, ..-,...,, t..-,...-.
THERE Is NO OTHER NAME. ..5
Again, I remark that Christ is above
all IN dying Allevistions. / have not any
sympathy with the morbidity abroad
about our de1nise. The emperor of Con
stantinopae arranged that on the day of
his oo9o1ation the etonemason Sshe1ld
come and consult him about his tomb
stone that after awhile he would need.
| And there are men who are monoInani-
ac& on the subject of ,departnre from
1 - u Il