Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1894-04-26
AT THE TABERNACLE
DR.. TALMAcE breaches ON cHRIsTs
PHYSICAL BEAUTY.


In No Age or Cline Did Live One Who
Could Compare With Him In comeliness.
He Loved Home and sobricty rnd Clean
Iiness-christ's Face on Canvas.
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 on by organ
and cornet, while by new vocabulary and
fresh imagery DIR. Talmage presented the
gospel. The subject of the sermon was
"Fairest of tho Fair" the text chosen be.
ing Solomon's Song V, l6, He is alto
gether lovely"
Tho human race has during centuries
been improving. For awhile 1t DETECTED
and degenerated, and from all I can read
for ages the whole tendency was toward
harbarism. But under the ever widen
ing and deepening influence Of Chris
tianity the tendency Is now In the up
ward direction. Tho physical appearance
of the human race Is rs per cent more
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 900 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-
sented as fine specimens of beauty would
be in our time considered deformity and
repulsiveness complete. The fact that many
men and women in antediluvian times
were and 10 feet high tended to make
tho human race obnoxious rather than win
ming. Such portable mountains of human
flesh 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 one who in physical
attraotiveness 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
ance of Christ is, for the most part, an
artistic guess. Some writer's declare him
to have been q brunette, or dark complex
ioned, and others a blond, or light COM
plexioned. ST. John of Damascus, writing
1,100 years ago and SO much nearer than
ourselves to the time of Christ, and hence
with more likelihood of accurate tradi-
tion, represents him with beard black and
curly, eyebrows Joined together and "yel-
low complexion and long fingers, like his
mother" An author writing /, 500 years
ago represents Christ as blond: "His hair
Is the color of wine and golden at the root,
straight and without luster but from the
level of the ears curling and glossy and d.
vided down the center after the fashion of
the NazArenes His forehead is even and
smooth, his face without blemish and en-
HANGED by tempered bloom; his counte-
nance 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 extreme
1y brilliant"
My opinion is, it was Jewish face. His
mother was Jewess, and there Is no
womanhood on earth more 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. I 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
came. Why did not some one take up that
chisel and give us the side face or full face
of our Lordf 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 facef Dionysius, the
literary artist, who saw at Heliopolis,
Egypt, the strange darkening Of the
heavens at the time Of Christ,s crucifxion
near Jerusalem, and not knowing what it
was, but describing it as . peculiar eclipse
of the sun, and saying Either the Deity
suffers or sympathizes with some sufferer, y
chat 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
worlds favorites 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 moro than /, 400years after Christ,
that talented painters attempted by pencil
to give us tho idea Of Christ's face. The
pictures before that time were SO offensive
that the council at Constantinople forbade
their exhibition. But Leonardo da Vinci
in the fifteenth century presented Christ
face on two canvases, yet the one was q re-
pulsive face and the other an effeminats
face. Raphael's face Of Christ is weak
faca A lhert n,1rpr,s face 0f Christ xvaa !,
savage face. Titian's face Of Christ is an
expressionless face. The mightiest artists,
either with pencil or chisel, have made sig.
nal failure in attempting to give the fore
head, the cheek, tho eyes, the nostril, the
mouth Of our blessed Lord.
But about his face / can tell you some
thing positive and beyond controversy.
am sure it was soulful face. The face ID
only the curtain Of the soul. 1t was impos-
sible that disposition like Christ should
not have demonstrated itself in his phys
iognomy. Kindness as an occasional i'm
pulse may give no illumination to the fear
tures, but kindness as the lifelong, domi.
nant habit will produce attractiveness oi
countenance as certainly as the shining oi
the sun produces flowers. Children are
afraid Of q scowling or hard visaged man.
They cry out If he proposes to take them.
II he try to caress them, he evokes slaI
rather than kiss.
All mothers know how hard 1t Is to get
their children to go to man or woman o1
forbidding appearance. But no sooner did
Christ appear In the domestic group thar
there was an infantile excitemant. and ths