Connecticut western news., 1896-10-08
HIS UNIQUE SERMON.
REV. DR. TAlMAGE BREACHES ON
 DIVINE CHiRo6RAPAY. e

REV. DR. TAlMAGE BREACHES ON
 DIVINE CHiROGRAPHY. Character In Handwriting-A Letter From
 Homc-Names Written In the Book of
 Eternal Life-Ink Made From the Call
 vary Sacrifice.
 WASHINGTON, Oct Ave send out tl Is, one of the most unique sermons Dr. Talmage ever preached. It is as novel as wide sweeping and practical His subject is Divine Chirography, the text being Luke X, 20, Rejoice because your names are written in heaven.
 Chirography, or the art of handwrit- ing, like the science of acoustics, is in very unsatisfactory state. While con- stlucting . church. and told by some architects that the voice would not be heard in building shaped like that proposed, came in much anxiety to this city and consulted with Professor Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian insti- tuition about the law of acoustics. He said: "Go ahead and build your church in the shape proposed, and I think it will be all right have studied the laws of sound perhaps more than any man of my time, and I have come so far as this: Two auditoriums may seem to be exactly alike and in one the acoustics ma- be good and in the other bad.
 In the same unsatisfactory stage is chirography, although many declare they have reduced it to science. There are those who say they can read charac- ter by handwriting. It is said that the way one writes the letter ''l" decides his egotism or modesty, and the way one writes the letter 70" decides the height and depth of his emotions It is declared a cramped hand means a cramped nature, and an easy, flowing hand facile and liberal spirit. But if there be any thing in this science, there must be some rules not yet announced, for some of the boldest and most az gressive men have delicate and small penmanship, while some of the most timid sign their names with the height and width and scope of the name of John Hancock on the immortal docu- ment Some of the cleanest in person and thought present their plotted and spattered page, and some of the rough est put before us an immaculate chirog- raphy. Not our character, but the copy plate set before us in our schoolboy day decides the general style of our hand writing. So also there is fashion in penmanship, and for one decade the let ters are exaggerated and in the next minified, now erect and now aslant, now heavy and now fine. An autograph album is always surprise, and you find the penmanship oontradicts the character of the writers. But while the chirography of the earth is uncertain, our blessed Lord in our text presents the chirography celestial. When ad- dressing the 70 disciples standing before him, he said. Rejoice because your names are written in heaven"
 Tho Book of Life.
 Of course the Bible, for the most part. when speaking of the heavenly world. speaks figuratively while talk ing about book. and about trumpets, and about wings. and about gates, and about golden pavements, and about orchards with 1a crops of fruit-one crop each month-and about the white horses of heavens cavalry. But we do we'll to follow out these inspired m eta phors and reap from them courage and sublime expectation and consolation and victory. We are told that in the heaven ly library there is book of life. Per haps there are many volumes in it. When we say book, we mean all writ tnv, hx-t bn bot T cannot tell how large those heavenly volumes are, nor the splendor of their binding. nor the number of their pages, nor whether they are pictorialized with some exciting scenes of this world I only know that the words have not been impressed by type, but written out by some hand. and that all those who, like the 70 disciples to whom the text was spoken, repent and trust the Lord for their eternal salvation surely have their names written in heaven. It may not be the same name that we carried on earth. We may, through the incon- siderateness cf parents, have a name that is uncouth. or that was afterward dishonored by one after whom we were called. do not know that the 70 en- frances of the names of the 70 disciples correspond with the record in the genea- logical table. It may not be the name by which we were called on earth, but it will be the name by which heaven will know us and we will have it an nounced to us as we pass in, and we will know it so certainly that we will not have 10 be called twice by it, as in the Bible times the Lord called some people twice by name: Saul, Saul!" Samuel, Samuelp' Martha, Marthal"
 When you come up and look for your name in tho mighty tonnes of eternity and you are so happy as to find it there, you will notice that the penmanship is Christ's, and that the letters were writ ten with a trembling hand-not trem- bling with old age, for he had only passed three decades when he expired. It was soon after the thirtieth anniyer- sary of his birthday. Look over all the business accounts you kept or the letters you wrote at 80 years of age, and if you were ordinarily strong and well then there was no tremor in the chirography. Why the tremor in the hand that wrote your name in heavenf Oh, 1t was 8 compression of more troubles than ever smote any one else, and all of them troubles assumed for others Christ was prematurely old. He had been exposed to all :,ie weathers of Palestine. He had slept out of doors-now in the night dew, and now in the tempest He had been soaked in the surf of Lake Galilee, Pii, lows for others. but he had not where to lay his head. Hungry. he could not even get fig on which to breakfast-or have you missed the pathos of that verse, ''Ip the morning. as he returned unto the city. he hungered, and when he saw fig tree in the way he came to It and found nothing thereon? Oh. he was hungry Christ. And nothing make,