The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-05-04
" FAIREST OF THE FAIR"
Rev. DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Personality Of Christ.
TIE Moral Attributes of the Goodman =
sure Index that Tie Must Have
Been the Perfection of Phys
ical Manhood and Beauty.


] lyn tabernacle, Rev. 7. Dewitt Tai
mage discoursed upon ''Fairest of the
Fair" as relating TO the personality
Of Christ, basing his sermon on the
Iext:
He together loyely-Solomon's Song,
", ,l6
The human race has during centu.
ries been improving. For awhile il
detected and degenerated, and from
hil can read, for ages the whole tend
eney was toward barbarism. But un.
der the ever widening and deepe ming
influence of Christianity the tendency
Is now ia 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 -sculptnres
Of those who were considered the
grand-lOOlEing men and the attrac-
tive women Of two hundred years
ago, l conclude the superiority of the
men and women of our time. Such
| looking people of the past centuries
rs painting and sculpture have pre-
/ sented as fine specimens of beauty and
dignity, would be In our time, consid-
cred defoT nifty and responsiveness com
Plete. The fact that many men and
women in antodiluvian 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 co Him whom my text celebrates,
thousands of years before He put His
infa-ntile foot on the hill back of
bethlehem. He was, and is, alto
gether lovely. The physical appear
Rnce of Christ In, for the most part, an
artistic guess. Some writers declare
Him TO have been brunette or dark
complexioned, and others a blonde on
light oomplexioned. st. John, OF
Damascus, writing eleven hundred
years ago, and SO much nearer
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
a blonde: His hair the color of wine
aud 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
blemis,l, and enhanced by a 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 forlxed in form;
IFS eyes blue and extremely brilliant" "
My opinion is it was Jewish face.
His mother was a 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 1 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 our
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 MP and give us
at least the eye of the Lord,
the eye, that sovereign of the faceP
Dionysius, the literary artist who saw
ut Heliopolis, Egypt, the strange dark
ening of the heavens at the time OF
Christ's crucifixion 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 mol the fine
arts were busy perpetuating the form
and appearance of the worlds favor
ties only, and not the form and dappear-
ance of the peasantry, among whom
Christ appeared.
It was not until the fifteenth CEN
tury, or until more than fourteen hun
dred years after Christ, that talented
painters attempted by pencil to give
us.the idea of Christ's face. The pictures
before that time were SO offensive that
the council at Constantinople forbade
there Lexhibition. But Leonardo Da
Vinci. in the fifteenth century, pre-
sented Christ's face on two canvases,
yet the one was a repulsive face and
the other an effeminate face.
Raphears face of Christ is a weak face.
Albert Durer's face of Christ was a
savage face. Tition's face of Christ is
an expressionless face. The mightiest
artists, either with pencil or chisel
have made signal failure in attempting
TO give the forehead, the cheek, the
eyes, the nostril, the mouth of oul
blessed Lord.
But about His face 1 can tell you
something positive, and beyond con.
troversy. am sure il was a soulful
face. The face is only the curtain oi
the soul. II was impossible that dis
position like Christ's should not have
demonstrated itself Sin His physiog
nomy. Kindness as an occasional i'm
pulse may give no illumination to the
features, but kindness as the lifelong
dominant habit viii produce attrac
tiveness of countenance as certainly as
the shining of the sun produce flowers
Children are afraid of q scowling on
lsard-visaged man. They cry out if he
proposes to take them. II he try &c
oaress them. he eVolres q slap rather
than kisa Az mothers kaer