The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1895-09-14
TALMAGE's SERMON.
Christ "Chiefest Among Ten Thou
sand"
The Most Conspicuous Character OF Ills
tory-Tho Pardon of All Min and
the Correction of All Evil
Chief In Heaven.


ton OF a sermon for publication this
week on the subject of '"The Chief
tain" basing II upon the text:
The chiefest among ten thousand. -Canticies
v..i0
The most conspicuous character OF
history steps out upon tine platform
Tho finger which, diamonded with
light, pointed down to him from the
bethlehem sky, was only ratifica-
ton of the finger OF prophecy, the
finger OF genealogy, the finger OF
chronology, the finger Of eveuts-all
five 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
sculpture. the most exquisite mingling
Of lights and shades in all paintings,
the acme OF all climaxes, the dome Of
all cathedraled grandeur, and the per-
Grafton OF all language.
The Greek alphabet is made up of
twenty-four letters. and when Christ
compared himself to the first letter
and the last letter, the Alpha and the
Omega, he appropriated to himself all
the splendors that you can spell out
either with those two letters or all the
letters between them: II am the
Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and the end"
What does that Scripture mean
which says of Christ: ''lIe that com
eth from Above is above all?" 1t means
after you have piled up all Alpine and
Himalayan attitudes, the glory of
Christ would have to spread its wings
and descend thousand leagues to
touch these SUBMITS. Pelion, a high
mountain OF Thessaly; Ossa, high
mountain, and Olympus, high
mountain; but mythology tells when
the giants warred against the gods
they piled up these three mountains,
and from the top of them proposed TO
scale the heavens: but the height was
not great enough, and there was
complete failure. And after all the
Riants-Isaiah and Paul. prophetic and
apostolic giants; Raphael and Michael
Angelo, artistic giants; cherubim and
seraphim and archangel, celestial
giants-have failed to climb to 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 prefers to call
Christ THE Chieftain," and so to-day
1 hail Him.
First. Christ must be chief in our
preaching. There are so many books
on homiletics scattered through the
country that all laymen, as well as all
clergymen, have made up their minds
what sermons ought to be. That SER
mon 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, ma
tional. There is no reason why we
should ring the endless changes on a
few phrases. There are those who
think that IL an exhortation or dis
course have frequent mention OF
justification. sanctification, covenant
of works and covenant OF grace,
therefore it must be profoundly evan
gclical, while they are suspicious of
discourse which presents the same
truth, but under different phrascology.
Now, say there is nothing in all the
opulent realm of anglo-Saxonisln, OF
all the word treasures that VIC inner
tied from the Latin and the Creek and
the Indo.European, hut we have
right to marshal it in religious discus
sion. Christ sets the example Ills
illustrations 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 teaching and in
mi nd IN h. ~,,t h.
limits
know that there is 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
writeSupon the tables OF stone? Words.
What did Christ utter on Mount
Olivet? Words. Out of what did
Christ strike the spark for the illumi-
nation of the universe? Out of words
Let there be light" and light was
or 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 al your Work, IN your SaDOaLn-
school class, in your rcformatory ihsti-
buttons, and what we all need is to en-
large our vocabulary when we come to
speak about God and Christ and Heav-
EN-. We ride few old words to death,
when there is such illimitnble resource
Shakespeare employed fifteen thou
sand different words for dramatic pur-
poses; Milton employed eight thousand
different words for poetic purposes;
Rufus Choate employed over eleven
thousand different words for legal pug
poses; but the most of us have less
than q 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 IL. and II 1t has never been used in
shat direction before all the more
shall we nse It. When we come To
speak of the glory of Christ the Con
queror we are going to draw our
SMILES from triumphal arch and ora.
torio and everything grand and stu.
pendous. The French navy have
eighteen flags by which they give
signal, but those eighteen flags they