The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1895-09-18
REV. DIR. TAI.MAGE.
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE
NOTED DIVINE.
Subject: "The Chieftain."

sand. nd."-Canticles ", 10.
The most conspicuous character OF history
steps out upon the platform. The finger
which. diamond with light. pointed down to
Him from the Bethlehem sky was only rati-
fcation Of the finger Of prophecy, the finger
OF genealogy, the finger Of chronology, the
finger of eyents-all five fingers pointing in
one direction. Christ is the overtopping
figure of all time. He is the ''vox humana''
in all music, the graeefulest line in all
sculpture, the most exquisite mingling OF
lights and shades in all painting. the acme
of all climaxes, the dome Of all cathedraled
grandeur and the peroration of all language.
The Greek alphabet is made up of twenty
four letters. and when Christ compared Him
self to the first letter and the last letter.the Al
pha andthe Omega, He appropriated to Him
self all the splendors that you can spell out
either with those two letters or all the let
tiers between them. "I am the Alpha and
the Omega. the beginning and the end.
What does that Scripture mean which says
of Christ. "He that cometh from above is
above alp 1t means that after you have piled
up all Alpine and Himaayau attitudes, the
glory of Christ would have to spread its
wings and descend a thousand leagues to
touch those SUBMITS. Pelion. a high noun
tain of Thessaly; OsSa. a high mountain,
and Olympus, q high mountain; but mythol-
ogy tells US when the giants warred against
the gods they piled up those three noun
tains, and from the top Of them proposed to
scale the heavens: but the height was not
great enough, and there was complete fall
ure. And after all tine giants-1saiah and
Paul, prophetic and apostolic giants, Raph-
ael and Michael Angelo. artistic giants;
cherubim and seraphim and archangel. ce-
lestial giants-have failed to climb to thetop
of Christ's glory they might all we'll unite in
the words Of Paul. and cry out, "Above
ALL" "Above all.' But Solomon in my
text prefers to call Christ "the Chieftain,"
and so to-day hail Him.
First, Christ must be chief in our preach
ing. There are so many books on homile-
tics scattered through the country that all
laymen, as we'll as all clergymen, have made
up their minds what sermons ought to be.
That sermon is the most effectual which
most pointedly puts forth Christ as the par
don OF all sin and the correction Of all evil
individual, social. political, national, There
is no reason why We should ring the
endless changes on a few phrases.
There are those who think that if an exhor-
tation or discourse have frequent mention
of justification, sanctifcation: covenant OF
works and covenant Of grace, therefore 1t
must be profoundly evangelical. while they
are suspicious of discourse which presents
the same truth, but under different phrase
ology. 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 Indo-Euro-
pean, but we have a right to marshal it in
RELIGIOUS discussion. Christ sets the exam
pie. His illustrations were from the grass.
tn. iowers, the barnyard fowl. the crystals
Of salt, as we'll as from the seas and the stars:
and we do not propose in our Sunday-school
teaching and in our pulpit address to be put
on the limits.
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, between
Almighty God and the human race. What
did God write upon the tables OF stone?
Words. What did Christ utter on Mount
Olivet? Words. Out of what did Christ
strike the spark for the illumination Of the
universe? 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 Sab
bath-school class, in your reformatory lnsti-
tutions. and what we all need, is to enlarge
our vocabulary when we come to speak
about God and Christ and heaven. We ride
q few old words to death, when there Is such
illimitable resource. Shakespeare employed
$4,000 different words for dramatic purposes;
poetic purposes: Rufus Choate employed
over II 1000 different words for legal pur-
poses, but the most Of us have less than
thousand words that We can manage, and
that makes US so stupid.
When we come to set forth the love OF
Christ, we are going to take the tenderest
phraseology wherever we find It, and II it
has never been used in that direction before
all the more shall we useit. When we come
to speak OF the glory of Christ the conquer
or, 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 sig
nal. but those eighteen flags they can put
into $4,000 different combinations. Aud
have to tell you that these standards OF the
cross may be lifted into combinations Infinite
and varieties; everlasting. And let me say to
the young men who come from the theoloGi-
cal seminaries into our services. and are after
awhile going to preach Jesus Christ, you will
have the largest liberty and unlimited re-
source. You only haveto present Christ In
your own way.
Brighter than the light, fresher than the
gospel themes. Song has no melody, flow
ers no sweetness. sunset sky no color COM
pared with these glorious themes. These
harvests of grace spring up quicker than we
can sickle them. kindling pulpits with
their fire, and producing revolutions with
their power, lighting up dying beds with
their glory. they are the sweetest thought
for the poet. and they are the most thrilling
illustration for the orator. and they offer the
most intense scene for the artist. and they
are to the ambassador of the sky all enthu-
siasm. Complete pardon for direst guilt.
Sweetest comfort for ghastltest agony.
Brightest hope for grimmest death. Grand
est resurrection for darkest sepulcher. Oh,
what a gospel to preach, Christ the
Chief. His birth, His suffering, His mir
acles. His parallels. His sweat. His tears, His
blood, His atonement. His sintercession-what
glorious themes! Do We exercise faith?
Christ is its object Do we love? It fastens
on Jesus. Have We fondness for the
church, 1t is because Christ died for it.
Have we hope of heaven? 1t is because
Jesus went there, the herald and the fore
runner. The royal robe of Demetrlus was
so costly, so beautiful, that after he had put
it off no one ever dared to put it on. but this
robe of Christ richer than that, the poorest
and the weakest, and the worst may wear,
"Where sin abounded. grace may much
moro abound"
"Oh. my sins, my sins!" said Martin Luther
to Staupitz, "my sins. my sins. The fact is
that the brawny German student had found
a Latin Bible that made him quake. aud
nothing else ever did make him quake, and
when he found how, through Christ, he was
pardoned and saved he wrote to a friend,
saying, "Come over and join us great and
awful sinners saved by the grace OF God,
You seem to be only slender sinner, aud
you don't much eItol the mercy Of God, but
we that have been such very awful sinners
praise His Grace the more now that we
have been redeemed" Can it be that you
are so desperately eCotistical that you