The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-12-27
THE DESIRE OF NATIONS"
ELOQUENT SERMON BY REV. DIR.
 GILBERT, YESTERDAY.


 the Desire of All Nations but of the Promptings of Every Human Heart-Ap- propriate and Beautiful Music Rendered at Both Services.
 At Trinity Methodist church yester- day both services were very beautiful! and entirely in keeping with the Christi mas spirit. The spacious auditorium was we'll filled each time, and no one could have failed of being impressed by the services. Specially arranged music was sung by the choir, one num- Der, entitled ''The Larger Christmas,'' being very appropriate and unusually well rendered. The words were writ ten by the pastor, Rev. Dr. Gilbert, and the music by MT. Y. R. Langdale
 In the morning Dr. Gilbert preached forceful and eloquent sermon on the subject "1'he Desire of All Nations.'' His text was from Haggai, second chapter and seventh verse, which reads, And 1 will shake all nations and the desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hDsts." The doctor said in part:
 Tt was not simply the desire or hope of all the children of Israel; not the hope that some one should come to be their Saviour who was born in Beth1e- hpU1 h1t Ia dnciS,a nd of all nations. There was a fullness of time and need for the fulf1iment of the expectations based on the prophecies. There was a desire for some perfect manifestation of the flesh. Moses de- clared that the Lord would send forth prophet much greater than Himself. Be they prophets, bards, philosophers, patrarchs, Hebrew or pagans, there was desire that some one should come who should be the desire of all nations.
 Hope was reaching forward to the great and better days of the world. De- spite the failure of the earth the sin and sorrow, the lust and slavery. the breaking down of the finer ideals and of all other ideals, there has neverthe- less existed this desire for one who should be the Redeemer. Jesus Christ, the desire of all nations, was real flesh and blood. He was not a phantom, as He is described by a well known writ CT. He endured the suffering on the earth and knew the suffering of man. kind.
 Nearly nineteen hundred years ago, as He lay in the manager, questions were asked and they are still asked. All history before awaited His coming, and history since is the interpretation of Him. He is a mystery. His char acter will never be fully understood. He was a root out of the dry ground. There was nothing local in Him. He was not of the Oriental class. He was the light of the world We can't under stand Him by looking at His race nor at His surroundings. Socrates was the greatest philosopher of his time, Shakespeare the greatest writer, Raph- ael the greatest artist, but Jesus Christ was far greater than all these. He stands alone, unique and majestic.
 Jesus Christ was peculiar line of essential manhood, and shows what manhood can be, He stands as the goal of humanity. He is a flying goal, as some one has aptly said. Never man talked as this man; never man suf- fered as this man suffered; never man sacrificed himself as this man sacrificed himself Take some of the characters of the founders of religion, Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, 1oroaster; we don't need to consult them. Simply compare them with Jesus Christ. Many times this question is asked: Will he ever be surpassed? Great writers have said that He never will be surpassed. Sometimes it seems as though that life was almost too good to be true; too holy to be fully realized. o that the Lord would give us that reality of vision that the early disciples had. Jesus does not dogmatise. He was not only the desire of all nations, but of every heart. This Christ is the ideal of every one of us. If Jesus Christ was simply an ideal we might be discour- aged. Christ doesn't demand of us the impossible. He helps us to be what we otherwise could not be; makes us like unto Himself. Jesus Christ stands before us the desire of all nations, and the desire of every heart. The kingdom of God is wider than the church. The church has endeavored and is endeavor- ing to establish his kingdom every where.