The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1893-08-31
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE's sun
DAY SERMON.
Subject: a Bold Challenge"

viii, 81
This is the last sermon l shall ever
preach. said Christmas Evans on the 18th
Of June 1888. Three days atterward he ex-
pred. I do not know what his text was,
but l know that no man could choose bet
ter theme-though he knew it was the last
time he should ever preach--than the subject
found in this text
Paul flung this challenge of the text 70 the
feet Of al ecclesiastical and civil authority.
He feared neither swords or lions, earth nor
hell Diocletian slew uncounted thousands
undeLhis administration, and the world has
been full OF persecution, but all the perse~
cdtors Of the world could not alright Paul.
Vas It because ne was physically strong?
Oh, no. ] suppose he was very much weak
ened by exposure and maltreatment. Was
it because he was lacking in constituencies?
No. You find the most delicate shades OF
feeling playing in and out his letters and
sermons. Some OF his communications
burst into tears. What was it lifted Paul
into this triumphant mood? The thought OF
Saviour dead, Saviour risen, Saviour
exalted. q Saviour interceding.
All the world has sang the praise Of Prin-
cess Alice One child having died Of con-
tagious disease, she was in the room where
another was dying, and the court physician
said to her You must not breathe the breath
OF this child, or you yourself Will die. But
seeing the child mourning because of the
death OF her brother, the mother stopped
down and il sympathy kissed the little one,
caught the disease and persisted. All the
world sang the heroism and the seiT-sacrihce
Of Princess Alice, but have to tell you that
when our race was dying the Lord Jesus
stopped down and gave US the kiss OF His
everlasting love and persisted that we might
live. st is Christ that died
Can you tell me how tender hearted Paul
IN, raiois1 af in, a
rible death scene of Calvary? We weep at
funerals we are sympathetic when we see
stranger die when murderer steps upon
the scafold we pray for his departing spirit,
and how could Paui-the great hearted Paul
find anything to be pleased with at the
funeral of q God? Besides that Christ had
only recently died, and the sorrow was fresh
in the memory OF the world, and how in the
fresh memory Of a 6ayiour's death could Paul
be exultant?
Il was because Paul saw IN that death his
own deliverance and the deiverance OF race
from still worse disaster. He saw the gap
into which the race must plunge, and he saw
the bleeding hands Of Christ close it. The
gittering steel on the top of the execution
ers spear in his sight kindled into a torch to
light men heayenward. The prosecutors saw
over the cross five words written in Hebrew,
Greek and Latin, but Paul saw over the eros.
of Christ only one eXpiatlon y He
heard in the diving groan of Christ his own
Groan OF eternal torture taken by another.
Paul said to himself Had it not been that
Christ volunteered in my behalf, those would
have been my mauled hands and feet, my
gashed side, my crimson temples"
Men of great physical endurance have
sometimes carried very heavy burdens-30O
pounds, 400 pounds-and they have still
said "My strength is not yet tested. Put
ON more weight" But after awhile they
we're compelled to cry out ''Stop 1 can
carry no more" But the burden OF Christ
was illimitable First. there was His own
burden of hunger and thirst and bereave-
ment and thousand outrages that have
been heaped upon Him, and on top OF that
burden were the sorrows OF His poor old
mother and on the top Of those burdens the
crimes o! the ruffians who were executing
Him.
stop m you cry 1T is enough Christ
can bear no more And Christ says, Roll
on more burdens roll Ne the sins OF this
entire nation, and after that roll on Me the
sins of the inhabited earth, and then roll on
Me the sins Of the 1000 years past, so far as
those sins have been forgiven" And the
angels OF God, seeing the awful pressure,
cry ''Stop He can bear no more. And
the blood rushing to the nostril and lip seems
TO cry out Enough He can endure no
more. But Christ says Roll on greater
burden, roll on the sins OF the next 1900
years roll on Me the sins OF the succeeding
ages, roll on Me the agonies OF hell, ages on
ages, the furnaces and the prison houses and
the tortures." That is what the Bible
means when it says, He bore our sins and
carried our sorrows.'
Nov, says Paul, Il am Tree. That sui
fering purchased my deliyerance. Goa neyei
collects a debt twice. l have a receipt il
full. If God is satisfied with me, then whai
do all the threats of earth and hell amount
to? Bring on all your witnesses, say:
Paul. ''Show all your force. Do your worst
against my soul. l defy you. | dare you
l challenge you. Who is he that condemn
eth? II is Christ that died On, what E
strong argument that puts in the hand OF ev-
cry Christian man Some day all the past
sins of his life come down on him IN fiery
troop, and they pound away at the gate OF
his soul, and they say 1--WE have come tol
your arrest Any one of US could overcome
you. We are 900 strong. Surrender.
And you open the door, and single handed
and alone you contend against that troop,
You fling this divine weapon into their midst
You scatter those sins as quick as you can
think it,
1T is Christ that died" Why then. bring
up TO us the sins of our past lifeY What have
etc do with those obsolete things? You
know how hard it is for wrecker 10 bring
up anything that is lost near the shore of the
sea, but suppose something be lost half way
between Liverpool and New York 1t can
not be found 1t cannot be fetched up
Now, says God, your sins have been cast
into the depths of the sea-" Mid-Atantic |
All the machinery ever fashioned in foun-
dries OF darkness and launched from the
doors of eternal death, working for 10 900
years, cannot bring up one of our sins for
given and forgotten and sunken into the
depths of the sea. When a sin is pardoned,
1t is gone. II is gone out of the books it ia
gone out of the memory it is gone out of ex-
lstence. ''1heir sins and their iniquities Will
/ remember no more"
From other tragedies men have come away
exhausted and nervous and sleepless. but
there is one tragedy that soothes and Gains
and saves. Calvary was the stage ON which
1t was enacted, the curtain Of the night fall
ing at midnoon was the drop scene, the
thunder of falling rocks the orchestra angels
in the galleries and devils in the pit the
spectators, the tragedy crueihxion. 'It ia
Christ that died" Oh, triumphant thought !
If you go through the picture gallery of
Versailles, yon will find great change
there | said to friend who had been
through those galleries. care they as they
We're before me French war;" and | was
told there was a great change there that all
that multitude of pictures which represented