Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1894-04-26
AT THE TABERNACLE
DR.. TALMkoE BREACHES ON cHRlST'S
PHYSICAL BEAUTY.

IN No Age OF Cline Did Live One who
Could Compare with Him In Comoliness.
+ Us Loved Home and sobriety and Clean
EARsA,-Christ's Face on Canvas.
BROOKLYN, April 22.-Mrs. Prentiss'
hymn, More Love to Thee, o Christ,
was never moro effectively rendered than
this morning by the thousands of voices in
she Brooklyn Tabernacle, led on by organ
and cornet, while by new vocabulary and
fresh imagery DR. Talmago presented the
gospel The subject of the sermon was
"Faircst of the Fair" the text chosen be-
ing Solomon's Song V, 16, "Ho is alto
gether lovely"
The human race has during centuries
been improving Foc awhile it detected
and degeneratcd, and from all / can read
for ages the whole tendency was toward
barbarism. But under the ever widen
ing and deepening influence of Chris
tianity the tendency is now in the up
ward direction. The physical appearance
of the human race Is 70 per cent moro
attractive than in the sixteenth, seven
teenth and eighteenth centuries From the
pictures on canvas and the faces and forms
in sculpture Of those who were considered
the grand looking men and the attractive
women of 200 years ago | conclude the
superiority of the men and women of our
time. Such looking people of the past cen
turtles as painting and sculpture have pre-
sentcd US fine specimens of beauty would
be in our time considered deformity and
responsiveness complete. The fact that many
men and women in sntediluvian times
Were and 10 feet high tended to make
the human race obnoxious rather than win
ming such portable mountains of human
Aosh did not add to the charms of the
world
Christ's Beauty.
But in no climate and in no age did
There ever appear any ono who in physical
nttracUiveness could be compared 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
altogether lovely The physical appear
anco of Christ is for the most part, an
artistic guess. Some writer's declare him
to have been brunette. or dark complex
toned, and others blond. or light com
plcxioned. St John of Damascus, writing
l, 100 years ago and so much nearer than
ourselves to the time of Christ, and hence
with more likelihood of accurate trsdi-
lion, represents him with beard black and
curly, eyebrows joined together and vel
low complexion and long fingers, like his
mother" An author writing 800 years
ago represents Christ as a blond: His hair
is the color of wine and golden at the root
straight and without lustcr, but from the
level of the ears curling and glossy and di-
eided down the center after the fashion of
the NaZdrenes. His forehead is even and
smooth, his face without blemish and en-
HANGED by a tempered bloom; his counte-
nance ingenious and kind. Nose and
mouth are in no way faulty. His beard is
full, of tho same color as his hair and
forked in form; his eyes blue and extreme
~ brilliant"
My opinion is, it was a Jewish face. His
mother was a Jewcss. and there is no
%omanhood on earth moro beautiful than
Jewish womanhood. Alas that he lived so
long before the daguerrean and photo
graphic arts were born, or we might have
known his exact features. l know that
sculpture and painting were born long be
fore Christ, and they might have trans
ferred from olden times to our times the
forehead, the nostril, the eye, the lips of
our Lord.
Phidias, the sculptor, put down his chisel
Of enchantment 500 years before Christ
chiscl and give us the side face or full face
of our Lord? Polygnotus, the painter, put
down his pencil 400 years before Christ.
Why did not some one take it up and give
us at least the eye of our Lord, the eye
that sovereign of the face? Dionysius the
literary artist, who saw at IIcliopolis,
Egypt, the strange darkoning of the
heavens at the time of Christ's crucifxion
near Jerusalem, and not knowing what it
was, but describing it as a peculiar eclipse
of the sun, and saying Either the Deity
suffers or sympathizes with some sufferer, "
that DionysiuS might have put his pen to
the work and drawn the portrait of our
Lord But, no; the fine arts were busy per
petuating the form and appearance of the
world : favoritcs only, and not the form
and appearance Of the peasantry, among
whom Christ appeared.
A Soulful Face.
1t was not until the fifteenth century,
or until more than l, 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 Constantinople forbade
their exhibition. But Leonardo da Vinci
in the fifteenth century presented Christ's
face on two canvases, yet the one was re
pulsive face and the other an effeminate
face. Raphael's face of Christ is weak
face. Albert Durcr's face of Christ was a
savage face. Titan face of Christ is an
expressionless face The mightest artists
either with pencil or chisel have made sig
nal failure in attempting to give tho fore
head, the cheek, the eyes, the nostril, the
mouth of our blessed Lord.
But about his face ] can tell you some
thing positive and beyond controversy. I
am sure it was soulful face. The face is
only the curtain of the soul. 1t was impos-
sible that disposition like Christ S should
not have demonstrated itself in his phys
iognomy. Kindness as an occasional i'm
pulse may give no illumination to the fca-
lures, but kindness as the lifelong domi-
nant habit will produce attrnctivencss of
lountenance 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.
II he try to caross them, he cvokes a slap
rather than kiss.
All mothers know how hard it is to get