The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1892-08-03
"PRE-EMINENT." A."
Rev. DR.. Talmage, Now Preaching
in Europe,
Takes for His Subject the Glorious Fig
ure of Christ, Showing Our
Need OF Him.

The most conspicuous character OF
history steps out upon the platform.
The finger which, diamonded with
light pointed down to Him from the
Bethlehem sky, was only 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 humana In all music, tho graceful-
est line in all sculpture, the most ex-
quisite mingling Of lights and shades in
al painting, the acme of AL 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 omega,
lie 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
the Omega, the beginning and the end,
the first and the last" Or, il you pre-
fer 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 thousand leagues
TO touch those SUBMITS. Pelion, high
mountain of Thessaly, Ossa, high
mountain and Olympus, high noun
tain; but mythology tells us when tho
giants warred against the gods they
piled up these three mountains and
from the top of them proposed 10 scale
the heavens but the height was not
great enough, and there was complete
failure. And after all the giants
Isaiah and Paul, prophetic and apos-
toiic giants; Raphael and Michael An
gelo, artistic giants; cherubim and sera-
phim and archangel, celestial giants
have failed to climb to the top OF Christ's
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 also many
books on homiletics scattered through
the world that all laymen, as well 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 par
don Of all sin and the correction Of all
evil, individual, social, political, ns-
tional. There is no reason why we
should ring the endless changes on a
few phrases There are those who
think that II an exhortation or
discourse have frequent mention of JUS
tihcation, sanctification, covenant OF
works, and covenant of grace, that
therefore 1t must be profoundly evan
gehcal, while they are suspicious Of a
discourse which presents the samo
truth, but under different phraseology.
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 Indo- European
but we have right to marshal II in re-
ligious discussion. Christ sets the ex-
ample. 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 tho stars;
and we do not propose In our Sabbath
school teaching and in our pulpit adj
dress to be put on the limits.
know there is n great deal said in
our day against words, as though they
were nothing. They may be misused, /
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 on the tables |
Of stone? Words. What did Christ utter
on Mount Olivet? Words Out of what !
did Christ strike the spark for the illu-
mination of the universe? Out OF words. |
Let there be light" and light was OF |
course, thought 1t 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 n
few old words 10 death when there is such
illimitable resource. Shakespeare en-
ployed fifteen thousand different words
for dramatic purposes; Milton employed
eight thousand different words for
poetic purposes; Rufus Choate en-
ployed 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 80 stupid.
When wo come 10 set forth the love
of Christ we are going TO take the ten
derest phraseology wherever we find IL,
and II 1t 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 tri-
lumphal arch and oratorio and every
thing grand and stupendoua The
French navy have eighteen flags by
which they give signal but those eiQh-
teen flags they can put into sixty-six
thousand different combinations And
u have TO tell you that these standards
of the cross may be lifted into combine
tions 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 lib
erty and unlimited resource You only
have to present Christ IN your own
way.
Jonathan Edwards preached Christ in
the severest argument ever psnned, and
John Bunyan preached Christ In the
sublimest allegory ever composed. Ed