The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-08-01
CHRIST WRITING IN THE DUST.
SAVIOR BELIEVED TO HAVE WRIT
TEN ONLY ONCE.

OF the World - The " rittng IN the
Dust Done When He Saved n " a.
man From Being stoned to Death
Lessons which the Preacher
Draws From the story.
Washington, July 3l.-In this discourse
DR.. Ta.mage gives heroic treatment OF a
delicate subject. ana applies 90 modern
society the lesson taught by Christ on a
memorable occasion. Text John 8.6:
Jesus stopped down and with his finger
wrote on the ground
You must take your shoes off and put
on the especial slippers provided at the
door if you would enter the Mohammcdan
mosque, which stands now where once
stood Herod's temple. the scene Of my
text Solomon's temple had stood there,
but Nebuchaduezzar had thundered it
down. Zerubbabers temple had stood
there, but that had been Frustrated Now
we take our places in a temple that Herod
built, because he was fond of great archi-
lecture. and he wanted the preceding tenn
pies 20 seem Insignificant Put eight or
ten modern cathedrals together, and they
would not equal that structure. Ii covered
nineteen acres. There were marble pillars
supporting roofs of cedar, ana silver ia
bles on which stood golden cups, and there
were carvings exquisite ana inscriptions
respondent, giittering balustrades and or
namented gateways. The building OF this
temple kept 1900 workmen busy forty-six
years.
In that stupendous pile of pomp and
magnjfcance sat Christ, and listening
throng stood about him when a wild dis
turbance took place. A group Of men
are pulling and pushing along a woman
who had committed a crime against So
ciety. When they have brought her in
front of Christ, they ask that he sentence
her TO death by sloning. They are a
critical, merciless, disingenuous crowd.
They want to get Christ into controversy
and public apprehension. If he say Let
her die" they will charge him with cruel
ty. II he let her go, they wil charge him
with being in completely with wickedness.
Whichever way he does, they would howl
at him.
Then occurs scene which has not been
sufficiently regarded. He leaves the lounge
or bench on which he was sitting and
goes down on one knee, or both knees
and with the forehnger of his right hand
word after word. But they We're not to
be diverted or hindered. They kept on
demanding that he settle this case of
transgression, until he looked up and told
them they might themselves begin the
woman's assassination. if the complainant
who had never done anything wrong him
self would open the fire. Go ahead, but
be sure that the man who filings the first
missile is immaculate" Then he resumed
writing with his finger in the dust of the
moor, word after word. Instead of look
ing over his shoulder to see what he had
written, the scouudrels skulked away
Finally, the whole place is clear of pur-
suers, antagonists and plaintiffs, and when
Christ has finished this strange chiro-
graphy in the dust he looks up and finds
the woman all alone.
The prisoner IS the only one of the
court room left, the judges, the police, the
prosecuting attorney having cleared out.
Christ is victor. and he says 10 the wo-
man: Where are the prosecutors in
this case? Are they all gone? Then I
discharge you; go and sin no more"
have wondered what Christ wrote on the
ground. For do you realize that is the
only time that he ever wrote at ali? L
know that Eusebius says that Christ once
wrote a letter to Abgarus the king of
Odessa, but there Is no good evidence of
such a correspondence. The wisest being
the world ever saw, and the one who had
u l.
never writing a book or a chapter or
paragraph or a word on parchment.
Nothing but the literature of the dust,
and one sweep of a brush or one breath
of wind o5luerated IL forever.
Among all the rolls of the volumes of
the first library founded a Thebes there
was not one scroll Of Christ. Among the
10000 books of the AIexandrian Library
which, by the infamous decree Of Caliph
Omar were used as fuel to heat the 4000
baths of the city, not one sentence had
Christ penued Among all the innnitude
Of volumes now standing in the libraries
of Edenburgh the British Museum, or
Berlin or Vienna, of the learned reposi-
tories of all nations, not one word written
directly by the finger of Christ All that
he ever wrote he wrote in dust, uncertain
shifting dust.
My text says he stopped down and wrote
on the ground. Standing straight up a
man might write on the ground with a
staff, but If with his fingers he would
write in the dust he must bend clear
over. Aye, he must get at beast on one
knee, or he cannot write on the ground
BE not surprised that he stopped down
his whole 3ife was stopping down
STOPPING down from castle to barn. Sloop-
ing down from celestial homage to mono
cratic jeer. From residence above The
stars to where a star had to fan to de.
signate his landing place. From heaVen't
front door to the worlds back gate From
writing in round and svered letters q
constellation and galaxy on the blue scroll
of heaven to writing on the ground in IN,
dust which the feet of the crowd had lef
in HerOds temple. If, in January. Yol
have ever stepped out Of a Princes con
servatory that had Mexican cactus anC
magnolas in fun bloom into the outsid,
air, ten degrees below zero, you may &c
some idea of Christs change of Amos
phere from celestial to terrestrial How
many heavens there are 1 know not, hu
there are al least three for Paul wa
Caught up into The third heaven"
Christ came down from the highos
heaven TO the second heaven, and dow
from second heaven to first heaven, dow
swifter than meteors ever fell dow
amidst stellar splendor that himscl
eelipsed down through clouds, throug
atmosphere, through appalling space
down to where there was no lower depth
From being waited on al the banquet q
the skies. TO the brOiling of fish for his ow