News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-09-28

gry-An Interesting sermon.
BROOKLYN, Sept. 24.-At the Brooklyl
Tabernacle this forenoon Rev. DR.. Tai
mage preached sermon of unusual in
terest to vast audience, the subJec
being ''The Nineteen Hundredth Ami
versary. A Proposition Concerning 1t.
The text was taken from Isaiah TX, 6
ITO us child is born"
That is a tremendous hour in the his
Sry of any family when AN Immortal
tpirit is incarnated. Out of q very darl
cloud there descendsa very bright morn
hg. One life spared and another given
All the bells of gladness ring over the
cradle. know not why any one should
doubt that of old star pointed down tc
the Saviour's birthplace, for star of JOY
points down to every honorable nativity
A new eternity dates from that hour,
that minute.
Beautiful and appropriate is the Gus
tom of celebrating the anniversary OF
such an event, and clear on into the
eighties and the nineties the recurrence OF
that day of the year in an old mans life
causes recognition and more or less con-
graduation. So also nations are &C
customed to celebrate the anniversary
of their birth and the anniversary OF
the birth of their great heroes or de-
iiyerers or benefactors. The 22d of Feb
ruarv and the 4th of July are never
allowed to pass in our land without
banquet and Grafton and bell ringing
and cannopade. But all other birthday
anniversaries are tame compared with
the Christmas festivity, which celebrates
the birthday described in my text.
Protestant and Catholic and Greek
churches, with all the power of music
and garland and procession and doxol-
ogy, put the words of my text into ma
tional and continental and hemisphere
chorus. ''To us child is born" On
the 25th of December each year that is
the theme in st. Pauls and st. Peters
and St. Marks and St. Isaac's and all
the dedicated cathedrals, chapels, meet
ing houses and churches clear round the
world.
We shall soon reach the nineteen
hundreth anniversary of that happiest
event of all time. This century is dy-
ing. Only seven more pulsations, and
its heart will cease to beat. The fingers
of many of you will write it at the head
of your letters and the foot of your inn
portant documents, "1900." 1t will be
physical and moral sensation unlike
anything else you have before expert
enced. Not one hand that wrote 1901"
at the induction of this century will
have cunning left to write 1901" at the
induction of another.
The death of one century and the birth
of another century will be sublime and
suggestive and stupendous beyond all
estimate. To stand by the grave of one
century and by the cradle of another
will be an opportunity such as whole
generations of the worlds inhabitants
never experienced. l pray God that there
may be no sickness or casualty TO hinder
your arrival at that goal or to hinder
your taking part in the yeledictory of
the departing century and the salutation
of the new.
But as that season will be the nine
teen hundredth anniversary of Saw
tours birth, now nominate that gre;
international jubilee or exposition be
opened in this cluster of cities by the
seacoast on Christmas day, the 25th of
December, 1860, to be continued for at
least one month into the year 1901. This
century closing Dec. 81, 1900, and the
new century beginning Jan. 1, 1901,
will it not be time for all nations to
turn aside for few weeks or months
from everything else and emphasize the
birth of the greatest being who ever
touched our planet, and could there be
a more appropriate time for such COM
memoration than this elimination of
the centuries which are dated from his
nativity? You know that all history
dates either from before Christ or after
Christ, from B. G. or A. d. 1t will be
the year of our Lord 1900 passing into
the year 1901.
We have had the Centennial at Phila-
delphia, celebrative of the one hundredth
anniversary of our nations birth. We
have had the magnificent expositions at
New Orleans and Atlanta and Augusta
and ST. Louis We have the present
orldsexpositiona at Chicago, celebrative
of the four hundredth anniversary of this
continents emergence, and there are
at least two other great celebrations
promised for this country, and 9TH
er countries will have their historic
events to commemorate, but the one
event that has most to do with the well
fare of all nations is the arrival of Jesus
Christ on this planet, and all the enthu-
Biasm ever witnessed atLondon or Wen
ma or Paris or any of our American cities
would be eclipsed by the enthusiasm that
would celebrate the ransom of all ma
tions, the first step toward the accom-
plishing of it being taken by an infan-
tile foot one winters night about five
miles from Jerusalem, when the clouds
dropped the angelic cantata, GLORY to
God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good will to men,"
The three or four questions that would
be asked me concerning this nomination
of time and place proceed to answer
What practical use would come of such
international celebration? Answer-The
biggest stride the world ever took to-
ward the evangelization of all nations.
That is grand and wonderful convoca-
tion, the religious congress at Chicago.
1T will put intelligently before the world
the nature of false religions which have
been brutalizing the nations, tramping
womanhood into the dust, enacting the
horrors of infanticide, kindling funeral
pyres for shrieking victims, and rolling
juggernauts across the mangled bodies
of their worshipers.
But no one supposes that any one will
be converted to Christ by hearing Con-
fucianism or Buddhism or any form of
heathenism eulogized. That is to be
done afterward. And how can it so well
be done as by q celebration of many
weeks of the birth and character and
achievements of the wondrous and I'M
precedented Christ? To such an EXPOSE
ton the kings and queens of the earth
would not send their representatives.
they would come themselves.
The story of Saviour's advent could
not be told without telling the story of
his mission. All the world would say,
"Why this ado, this universal demon
stration?" What a vivid presentation it
would be, when at such a convocation
the physicians of the world should tell
what Christ had done for hospitals and
the assuagement of human pain, and
when Christian lawyers declare what
Christ has done for the establishment of
good laws, and Christian conquerors
should tell what Christ had done in the
conquest of nations, and Christian rulers
of the earth would tell what Christ had
done in the government of earthly do
minions!
Thirty days of such celebration would
do more to tell the world who Christ is
than any 80 years. Not a land on earth
but would hear of it and discuss it. Not
an ava oo diYnnnad NV tho c17paretitioD Of