Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1892-08-11
PRE-EMINENT JESUS,
DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON FOR LATE
JULY IN SCOTLAND.

nan >orrow - Dying Testimonies a,
Many Eminent Men.
LONDON, July 31.-Sinee his return from
Russia DR.. Talmage has been literally
Hooded with invitations to address cone,re.
cations and lyceums ON the subject of his
journey to the land of the car. whittier ne
went with Mr.. Louis Klopsch to direct the
distribution of The Christian Herald re.
llef cargo. While expressing his high an.
probation of the cordial welcome and
splendid hospitality extended by the of.
metals OF St Petersburg and Moscow. OF
the civic honors heaped upon the Ameri.
can visitors and of Russia's national graft
.ude 10 America, as personally expressed
oy the czarowitz at Peterhof, where he
entertained them as guests. DIR. Talmage
mas been compelled to adhere to his origi-
nal programme During the week he has
oeen preaching in the leading Scottish
cities. His arrangements for next week
include services Mt Newcastle and Sunder-
land, and thereafter he goes to the Isle of
Man for few days The sermon selected
for this week is entitled "Pre-eminent %
the text being John iii, 81, she that
cometh from above is above all.n
The most conspicuous character of his
tory steps ont upon the platform. The fin
ger which. diamonded with light, pointed
down to him from the Bethlehem sky, was
only a ratification of the finger Of prophecy,
the finger of genealosy, the finger of chro-
nology, the finger Of eyents-all five fin
gers pointing in one direction. Christ is
the overlapping figure of all time He is
the vox humana in all music, the graceful
est line in all sculpture, the most exquisite
mingling of lights and shades in al paint
ing, the acme of all climaxes, the dome of
all cathedraled grandeur and the perora-
ton Of all splendid language
The Greek alphabet is made UP of
twenty-four letters, and when Christ COM
pared 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.
IL am the Alpha and the Omega. the be-
ginning and the end, the first and the
last Or, if you prefer the words of the
text, "aboye all. !"
1t means, after you have piled up all Al
pine and IIimalayan attitudes, the glory of
Christ would have to spread its wings and
descend a thousand leagues to touch those
submits. Pelion, high mountain Of
Thessaly; Ossa, high mountain, and
Olympus, high mountain; but mythology
tells us when the giants warred against
the gods they piled up these three noun
taiDs and from the top Of them proposed
to 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 apostolic giants;
Raphael and Michael Angelo, artistic
giants: cherubim and seraphim and arch
angel, celestial giants have failed to climb
to the top of Christ's glory, they might all
well unite in the words of the text and say,
HE that cometh from above is above all !"
TIKI CENTRAL THEME IN PREACHING.
First, Christ must be above all else in
our preaching. There are so 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 etfectual
which most pointedly puts forth Christ as
the pardon of all sin and the correction of
all evil, individual, social, political, ma
tional There is no reason why we should
ring the endless changes on a few phrases.
There are those who think that if an ex-
hortation or a discourse have frequent
mention of justification, sanctification,
covenant of works and covenant of grace,
that. therefore it must be profoundly
evangelical, while they are suspicious of
a discourse which presents the same truth,
but under different phraseology.
Now, say there is nothing in all the
opulent realm of Anglo-SaXonism or all
the word treasures thatNye inherited from
the Latin and the Greek and the lndo-
European but we have a right to marshal
il in religious discussion. Christ sets the
example His illustrations were from the
grass, the flowers, the spittle, the salve,
the harvard fowl, the crystals of salt as
well as from the seas and the stars, and we
do not propose in our Sabbath school teach
ing and in our pulpit address to be put on
the limits.
know that there is 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 upon the tables OF stonesg
Words. What did Christ utter on Mount
Oliyety Words. Out of what did Christ
strike the spark for the illumination OF tine
nn;yersey Ont 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 with
out the ship?
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 ola
words to death when there is such illlmlt-
able resource. Shakespeare employed nj
teen thousand different words for dramatic
purposes: Milton employed eight thousand
different words for poetic purposes; huIns
Choate employed over eleven thousand dlf-
ferent words for legal purposes, but the
most of us have less than thousand
words that we can manage, less than hve
hundred. and that makes US so stupid.
All SWEET WORDS NEEDED.
When we come to set forth the love Oh
christ we are going to take the tenderest
nbraseology wherever we find It, ana II II
las never been used in that direction be-
a. all the more shall we use II. Nheh