The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-09-02
THE BEGINNING AND THE END.
CHRIST THE MOST CONSPICUOUS
CHARACTER or ALL HISTORY.


"The Choicest Among Ten Thou
sand"-The Finger. which Din-
mOnded With Light, Pointed Down
TO Him From the Bethlehem sky n
Ratification of the Finger of
Prophecy-Christ the Overlapping
Figure of All Time.
New York. Sept For his sermon for
this forenoon. Rev. DIT. Talmage selects
a topic which must prove fun Of inspir-
alton to Christians everywhere. The title
of his discourse is: The Chieftain." and
the text: THE chiefest among ten thou
sand" Canticles 8: 10.
The most conspicuous character Of his
tory steps out upon the platform The
finger which. diamonded with light,
pointed down to ham from the Bethlehem
sky, was only a ratification Of the finger
Of prophecy, the finger Of genealogy, the
finger of chronology. the finger of events
all fve fingers pointing IN one direction.
Christ is the overlapping figure Of all
time He is the "vox humana" in all
music. the gracefulest line in all sculpt-
ure. the most exquisite mingling of lights
and shades in all painting, the acme Of
all climaxes, the dome of all cathedral
grandeur, and the peroration Of all Ian
guage.
The Greek alphabet is made up Of TWEEN
fy-four letters, and when Christ compar-
ed himself to the first letter and the last
letter, the Alpha and the omega, he APP
propriated to himself all the splendor that
you can spell out either with those two
letters or all the letters between them:
Il am the Alpha and the Omega, the be-
ginning and the end"
What does that Scripture mean which
says of Christ, He that cometh from
above is above alp 1t means after you
have piled up all Alpine and Himalayan
attitudes the glory of Christ would nave 10
spread its wings and descend thousand
leagues to touch those submits. Pellon,
a high mountain of Thessaly; Ossa, high
mountain and Olympus, a high mountain;
but mythology tells us when the giants
warred against the gods they piled up
these three mountains ana from the top
OF them proposed to scale the heavens;
but the hight was not great enough, ana
there was complete failure. And after
all the giants-lsaiah and Paul, prophetic
and apostolic giants Raphael and Michael
Angelo, artistic giants; cherubim and SER
aphim and archangel, celestial giants
have failed to climb 10 the top Of Christ's
glory they might all well unite in the
words of Paul. and cry out: Above all!
above all" But solomon in my text pre-
fers to call Christ The Chiettaln, ana so
to-day l hail him.
First, Christ must be chief in our preach
ing There are so many books on homi-
letics scattered through the country that
all laymen, as well all clergymen, have
made up their minds what sermons ought
10 be. That sermon is the most effeetual
which most pointedly puts forth Christ as
the pardon of all sin and the correction Of
all evil-individual. social political, ma
tional. There is no reason why we should
ring the endless changes on a few phrases
There are those who think that If an eX-
hortatiOn or "A discourse have frequent
mention of justification, sanctiication,
covenant of works and covenant of grace,
therefore it must be profoundly evangeli-
cal while they are suspicious OF dis
course which presents the same truth, but
under different phraseology. Now, l say
there is nothing in all the opulent realm of
Anglo Saxonism, of all the word treasures
that we inherited from the Latin and the
Greek and the lndo-European, but we have
a right to marshal il in a religious discus
sion Christ sets the example His illus
trations were from the grass, the flowers,
the barnyard fowl. the crystals of salt as
well as from the seas and the stars;and we
do not propose in our Sunday school teach
ing and in our pulpit address TO be put on
the limits.
l know that there is a great deal said
in our day against words, as though they
were nothing. They may be misused, but
they have an imperial power. They are
the bridge between soul and soul, be
tween Almighty God and the human race.
What did God write upon the tables of
stone? Words. What did Christ utter
on Mount OliVet2 Words. out OF what
did Christ strike the spark for the illu-
mination of the universeg out of words.
Let there be light" and light was. OF
course. thought is the cargo, and words
are only the ship; but how fast would
your cargo get on without the ship?
What you need, my friends, in all your
work in your Sabbath school class, in
your reformatory institutions, and what
we all need, is to enlarge our vocabula-
~ when we come to speak about God and
Christ and heaven. We ride few old
words to death, when there Is such IL
limitable resource. Shakespeare employ
ed fifteen thousand different words for
dramatic purposes; Milton employed
eight thousand different words for poetic
purposes; Rufus Choate employed over
eleven thousand different words for legal
purposes: but the most of us have less
v
age, and that makes us so stupid.
When we come to set forth the love at
Christ we are going to take the tenderest
phraseology wherever we find it, and if it
has never been used in that direction be-
fore, all the more shall we use it. When
we come to speak of the glory of Christ
the Conqueror, we are going to draw our
SMILES from triumphal arch and oratorio
and everything grand and stupendous.
The French navy have eighteen flags by
which they give signal, but those eight
cen flags they can put into siXty-siX thou
sand different combinations. And / have
TO tell you that these standards of the
cross may be lifted into combinations in
finite and varieties everlasting. And let
me say TO these young men who come
from the theological seminaries into our
services, and are, after awhile, going
to preach Jesus Christ: You will have the
largest liberty and unlimited resource
You only have to present Christ in your
own way.
Brighter than the light, fresher than the
fountains, deeper than the seas, are all
these Gospel themes, song has no melody
flowers no sweetness, sunset sky no color
compared with these glorious themes
These harvests of grace spring up quick
er than we can sickle them. Kindling pull
pits with their fire, and producing revo-