Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-04-28
FAIREsT OFTHE FAIR
REV. DR.. TALMAcE's SERMON AT THE
BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.

KEW. DIX. SEnW0N ~ i6I
BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.
The Eloquent Pastor Discusses the Attrl-
butes Of Christ-Thc Great, the Good, the
Fair. the Sublime-A Characteristic Ser
mon-Praisc From a Thousand Voices.
BROOKLYN, April 22.-Mrs. Prentiss'
hymn, more Love to Thee, o Christ
was never more effectively rendered than
this morning by the thousands of voices
in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, led Oh by
organ and cornet, while by new vocabu-
larry and fresh imagery DR.. Talmage
presented the gospel. The subject of the
sermon was "Fairest of the Fair" the
text chosen being Solomon's Song V, 16,
He is altogether lovely"
The human race has during centuries
been improving. For awhile it dehected
and degcnerated, and from all l a read
for ages the whole tendency was toward
barbarism, but under the ever widening
and deepening influence of Christianity
the tendency is now in the upward di-
rection. The physical appearance of the
human race is 70 per cent more attract
i've than in the sixteenth, seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. From the pic
lures on canvas and the faces and forms
in sculpture of those who were consid-
cred the grand looking men and the at
tractivo women of 200 years ago / con-
clude the superiority of the men and
women Of our time. Such looking peo-
pie of tho past centuries as painting and
sculpture have presented as fine speci-
mems of beauty and dignity would be in
our time considered deformity and re-
p~ulsiveness complete. The fact that
many men and women in antediluyian
times were s and 10 feet high tended to
make the human race obnoxious rather
than winning. Such portable mountains
of human flesh did mot add TO the charms
of the world.
The Physical Christ.
But in no climate and il no age did
there ever appear any one who III phys
ical attractivencss could be compared
to him whom my text celebrates thou
sands of years before he put his infan-
tile foot Oh the hill back Of Bethlehem.
He was and is altogether lovely. The
physical appearance Of Christ is, for the
most part, an artistic guess, Some writ
ers declare him to have been @ brunette
or dark ~complexioned, and others a
blond or light complexioned. st. John
of Damascus, writing /, 100 years ago,
and so much nearer than ourselves to
the time of Christ, and hence with more
likelihood of accurate tradition, repre-
sents him with beard black, and curly
eyebrows joined together, and yellow
complexion, and long fingers like his
mother" An author, writing 1000
years ago, represents Christ as a blond;
His hair is the color of wine and golden
at the root, straight and without lus-
ter, but from the level Of the ears, curl
ing and glossy, and divided down the
center after the fashion of the Naza-
renes. His forehead is even and smooth,
his face without Flemish and enhanced
by a tempered bloom, his countenance
ingenious and Kind. Nose ard mouth
arc in no way faulty. His beard is full,
of the same color Is his hair and forkod
in form; his eyes blue and extremely
brilliant"
My opinion is, it was a Jewish fcce.
His mother was q Jewess, and there is
10 womanhood on earth more beautiful
than Jewish womanhood. Alas that he
lived so loAs; before tho daguerrean and
Photographic arts wcrc born, OF we
might have known his exact features. /
know that cculpture and painting were
born long before Christ, and they might
have transferred from oldcn times to
our times the forehead, the n~ostril, the
eye, tho lips Of our LcTd.
Phidias, the sculptor, pat down his
chisel of enchantment 500 years before
Christ came. Why did not come enc
take up that clisel aid give u3 the side
face. or full face OF our Lord? Polygho-
tus, the painter, put down his pencil
400 years before Chrict. Why did not
some IL take it up and give rs ct least
the eye of our Lord-tho eye, that SOW
ereign Of the face? Dionysius, the litera-
ry artist who saw at Heliopolis, Egypt,
the strange darkening Of the heavens at
the time of Christ's crucifixion near Je-
rusalem, and not knowing what it was,
but describing it as a peculiar eclipse
Of the sun, and saying, Either the Del
ty suffers or sympathizes with some suf-
ferer," that Dionysius might have put
his pen to the work and drawn the por-
trait of our Lord. But, TO; the fine arts
were busy perpetuating the form and
appearance of the worlds favorites only,
and not the form and appearance of the
peasantry, among whom Christ appear
ed.
Portraits of Christ.
1t was not until the fifteenth century,
or until more than 400 years after
Christ, that talented painters attempted
by pencil to give us the idea of Christ's
face. The pictures before that time We're
so offensive that the council at Constan-
tinoplo forbade their exhibition. But
Leonardo ia Vinci, in the fifteenth cen
fury, presented Christ's face on two can
vases, yet the one was a repulsive face
and the other an elfeminate face. R.aph-
ael's face of Christ is a weak face.
Albert Durer's face Of Christ was asav-
tlSC ldSC. 1ltlbI . l0Nt VI SIIlSb ID All
expressionless face. The nlightiest art
lists, either with pencil or chisel, have
made signal failure i'll attempting to
give the forehead, the check, the eyes,
the nostril, the mouth of our blessed
Lord.
But about his face l can tell you some
thing positive and beyond controversy.
| am sure it was a soulful face. The
face is only the curtain of the soul. 1t
vas impossible that a disposition like
Christ's should not have demonstrated
itself in his physiognomy. Kindness as
an occasional impulse may give no illu-
mination to the features, but kindness
as the lifelong, dominant habit will
produce attractiveness of c~ountenance
as certainly as the shining of the sun
produces flowers. Children are afraid of
a scowling or hard visaged man. They
cry out if he proposes to take them. If
he try to caress them, he evokes a slap
n HTDT JNT