The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-09-13
NrHE CHtEFTAN.n
Dr. Talmage Describes History's
Noet Noted Character
Christ Is Above Ar. the Chieisst Among
Ten Th0Esand-ThrouGh Him
Comes Pardon of All STA
and Eterrsi kIfa sz

ne cAleIeSt among zen tHG0BAnuE-t3nticir'
VIA
The most eonspicuoHs character 81
history steps ont upon the platform.
The finger which, diamonded with
light, pointed down to hint ff6m the
BethleheIn szto Was only a ratifica
ton of Tie finger Of prophecy. the
finger OF Fenealogy. the finger ol
chronology, the finger q events-all
five fingers tOidting in one direction.
ChriEt Is the overlapping figure of al
time. He is the '.vox humane" in al
music, the gracefulest line in all
sculpture, the most exquisite minglinR
of lights AID shades in all paintings
the acme of all climaxes, The dome Of
all cathedraled grandeur, and the per-
grafton OF al language.
The Greek alphabet is made mp Oh
twenty-four letters, and when Christ
compared himself to the first letter
aud 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; 81 am the
Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and the end
What does that Scripture ttieah
which says OF Christ: "He that com
eth from Above is above alp" 1t means
after you have piled up all Alpine and
Himalayan attitudes, the glory OF
Christ would have to spread its wings
and descend a thousand leagues to
touch those SUBMITS. Peliop, "A high
mountain of Thessaly, Ossa, a high
mountain, aud Olympus, a high
mountainl but mythology tells when
The giants warred against tine 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 a
complete failure. And after all the
giants-Isaiah and Paul, prophet tic and
apostolic giants; Raphael and Michael
Angelo, artistic giants, cherubim and
seraphim and archangel, celestial
giants-have failed 10 climb to the top
of Christ's glory, they might all well
unite IN the words of Paul and cry
out: above allF' above allV' But
Solomon in my text prefers to call
Christ THE Chieftain," and so to-day
/ hail Him.
First. Christ must be chief in our
preaching. There nre So many books
on homileties 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
eyil-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 exhortation or a dis
course have frequent mention OF
justification, sanctification, covenant
of works and covenant of grace,
therefore it must be profoundly evan
gelical, while they are suspicious of a
discourse which presents the same
truth. but under different phraseology.
Now, / say there is nothing in all the
opulent realm of anglo-Saxonism, of
all the word treasures that we inner
tied from the Latin and the Greek and
the Indo European, but we have a
right to marshal it in religious discus
sion. Christ sets the example Ills
illustrations were from the grass, the
flowers, the bRrnyard 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
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 Ftone? Words
What did Christ utter on Mount
Oliyet2 Words. Out of what did
Christ strike the spark for the illumi-
nation of the universe? Ont 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 insti-
tutions, 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 illimita BILE resource.
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 pur-
poses; but the most of US have less
than a thousand words that we can
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 if it has never been used in
that direction before all the more
shall we use 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
pcndous. The French navy have
eighteen flags by which they give
signal, but those eighteen flags they
can put into sixty-six thousand differ
ent com binations. And / have to tell
you sl4at these standards of the cross
may ts lifted into combinations in
fnits and varieties everlasting. And
ct sse say TO these young men who
coEis from the theological seminaries
into our services, and are, after awhile,
going 10 preach Jesus Christ. You
will have the largest liberty and un.
limited resource. You only have to
present Christ in your own way.