The Bossier banner., 1894-06-07
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Personality of Christ was Al
together Lovely.
characteristics of the Saviour-He Be.
lieved in Cleanliness, Sobriety and
Domesticity-His Great Love
and Sympathy.

personality of Christ. His text was:
He is altogether lovely-Solomon's Song
", 16
The human race has during centu-
ries been improving. For awhile it
detected and degenerated, and from
all can read, for ages the whole tend
ency was toward barbarism But un-
der the ever widening and deepening
is now in the upward direction. The
physical appearance of the human
race is seventy-five per cent. more at
tractive than in the sixteenth, seven
teenth or eighteenth centuries. From
| the pictures on canvas and the
| faces and forms in sculptures
of those who were considered the
| grand-looking men and the attrac-
tive women OF two hundred years
ago, conclude the superiority of the
men and women of our time. Such
looking people of the past centuries
as painting and sculpture have pre-
sented as fine specimens of beauty and
dignity. would be in our time, consid-
| cred deformity and responsiveness COM
| plete. The fact that many men and
women in antediluvian times were
eight and ten feet high tended to make
the human race obnoxious rather than
| winning. Such portable mountains of
human flesh did not add to the charms
| of the world.
But in no climate and in no age did
| there ever appear anyone who in
| physical attractiveness could be COM
| pared to Him whom my text celebrates,
thousands of years before He put His
| infantile foot on the hill back of
Bethlehem. He was, and is, alto
gether lovely. The physical appear
ance of Christ is, for the most part, an
artistic guess. Some writers declare
| Him to have been brunette or dark
complexioned, and others a blonde or
light complexioned. st. John, of
Damascus, writing eleven hundred
| than ourselves to the time of
Christ, and hence with more likeli-
hood of accurate tradition, represents
| Him with beard black and curly, eve
brows joined together, and yellow
complexion and long fingers like His
mother" An author writing fifteen
hundred years ago represents Christ as
blonde: His hair the color of wine
and golden at the root; straight and
without luster; but from the level of
the ears curling and glossy, and di
vided down the center after the man
ner of the Nazarenes His forehead is
even and smooth, His face without a
blemish, and enhanced by tempered
bloom; His countenance ingenious and
kind. Nose and mouth are in no way
faulty. His beard is full, of the same
color as His hair. and forked in form;
His eyes blue and extremely brilliant. :"
My opinion is it was Jewish face.
His mother was Jewess, and there is
no womanhood on earth more beauti-
full than Jewish womanhood. Alas.
that He lived so long before the Da-
guerran and photogra phic arts were
born, or we might have known His ex-
act features. l know that sculptor and
painting were born long before Christ,
and they might have transferred from
olden times to our times, the forehead,
the nostril, the eye, the lips of cur
Lord. Phidias, the sculptor, put down
his chisel of enchantment five hundred
years before Christ came. Why did
not some one take up that chisel, and
give us the side face or full face of our
Lord? Polygnotus the painter put
down his pencil four hundred years
before Christ. Why did not some
one take it up and give us
at least the eye of the Lord
the eye, that sovereign of the face;
Dionysius, the literary artist who saw
at Heliopolis, Egypt, the strange dark
ening of the heavens at the time OF
Christ's crucifxion near Jerusalem
and not knowing what it was, but de
scribing it as peculiar eclipse of the
sun, and saying, Either the Deity
suffers or sympathizes with some suf
ferer," that Dionysius might have put
his pen to the work and drawn the
portrait of our Lord. But no! the fine
arts were busy perpetuating the form
and appearance of the worlds favor
ties only, and not the form and appear
ance of the peasantry, among whom
Christ appeared.
1t was not until the fifteenth cen
tury, or until more than fourteen hun
dred years after Christ, that talented
painters attempted by pencil to Civ
us,the idea of Christ's face. The picture
before that time were so offensive tina
the council at Constantinople forbad
there Exhibition. But Leonardo D.
Vinci, in the fifteenth century, pre-
sented Christ's face on two canvases
yet the one was repulsive face an
the other an effeminate face
! Rapheal's face of Christ is a weak face
Albert Durer's face of Christ was
savage face. Tition's face of Christ
an expressionless face. The mighties
artists. either with pencil or ehise
have made signal failure in attemptin
to give the forehead, the cheek, tn
eyes, the nostril. the mouth of ou
: Eles8ed Lord.
But about His face can tell yc
semething positive. and beyond eol