The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1894-06-16
" FAIREST OF THE FAIR"
Rev. DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Personality Of Christ.

Personality Of Christ.
The Moral Attributes of tho Goodman |
Sure Index that He Must Have
Boon tho Perfection of Phys
ical Manhood and Beauty.
On recent Sabbath, in the Brook
lyn tabernacle, Rev. T. Dewitt Tai
mage disconrsed upon "Fairest OF the
Fair" as relating to the personality
of Christ. basing his sermon on the
text:
He is altogether loyely-Solomon's Song.
", 10.
The human race has during ceptu-
ries been improving. For awhile it
DETECTED and degenerated, and from
oil can read, for ages the whole tend
ency was toward barbarism. But un-
der the ever widening and deepening
influence of Christianity the tendency
is now in the upward direction. The
physical appearance of the human
race is seventy-f1ve 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-loolxing 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-
scented 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 nQ9elimate 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 a brunette or dark
complexioned, and others a blonde or
light complexioned. St. John, OF
Damascus, writing eleven hundred
years ago, and so much nearer
than ourselves to the time OF
i Christ, and hence with more likeli
hood of accurate tradition, represents
Him with beard black and curly, eye
brows joined together, and yellow
complexion and long fingers like His
mother" An author writing fifteer
hundred years ago represents Christ AZ
a blonde: 'sHis 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 il
even and smooth, His face without ,
blemish, and enhanced by temperes
bloom; His countenance ingenious ant
kind. Nose and mouth are in no wa.
faulty. His beard is full, of the SAM
: color as His hair, and forked in form
; His eyes blue and extremely brilliant
Ny opinion is it was Jewish face
D His mother was Jewess, and there
e no womanhood on earth more beauti
| full than Jewish womanhood. Alas
3 that He lived so long before the Da
guerran and Photographic arts wer
born, or we might have known His ex
e act features l know that sculptor an
painting were born long before Christ
and they might have transferred fror
olden times to our times, the forehead
n the nostril, the eye, the lips OF GU
! Lord. Phidias, the sculptor, put dow
q his chisel of enchantment five hundre
wears before Christ came. Why di
not some one take up that chisel, an
l. give us the side face or full face OF on
# Lord? Polygnotus the painter pr
down his pencil four hundred yeal
before Christ. Why did not som
one take it up and give I
at least the eye of the Lore
the eye, that sovereign of the face
Dionysius, the literary artist who sa
at Heliopolis, Egypt, the strange darl
p ening of the heavens at the time
Christ's crpcifxion near Jerusalem
ard not knowing what 1t was, but d
scribing it as peculiar eclipse of Il
sun, and saying, EITHER the Deli
r. suffers or sympathizes with some su
ferer," that Dionysius might have p
E. his pen to thqwork and drawn Il
10 portrait of our Lord. But no! the fiji
lie arts were busy perpetuating the for
o. and appearance of the worlds fave
~ ties only, and not the form and appea
1T ance of the peasantry, among who
e, Christ appeared
he 1t was not until the fifteenth &c
s, tury, or until more than fourteen hu
ut dred years after Christ, that talent
D. painters attempted by pencil to gi
Is us,the idea of Christ's face. The pictur
~ before that time were so offensive tn
es the council at Constantinople forba
n there rexhibition. But Leonardo
,p vinci, in the fifteenth century, p
a sented Christ's face on two canvas
he vet the one was a repulsive face a
,is the other an effeminate ia
er Raphears face of Christ is a weak IA
Albert Durer's face of Christ wa:
I savage face. Tition's face of Christ
I an expressionless face. The mighti
No artists, either with pencil or CHS
as have made signal failure in attempt
at to give the forehead, the cheek,
at ewes, the nostril. the mouth OF
ed blessed Lord.
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