The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1901-05-02
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
DISCOURSE BY THE EMINENT DI.
VINE LAST SUNDAY.
Subject; In Praise of the Worlds Re
Geemer-Portraits of Some of His Great
Disciples and ExpOnents-The Love of
Christ Set Forth.

Christ Set Forth.
lCoypright 1901
WASHINGTON, d. C.-In this discourse
DIR. Talmage sounds the praises of the
worlds Redeemer, and puts before us the
portraits Of some OF His great disciples
and opponents; text, John iii, 81, He
that cometh from above is above all,
The most conspicuous character of his
tory steps out upon the platform. The
finger which, diamonded with light, point
ed down to Him from the Bethlehem sky
was only ratification of the finger of
prophecy, the finger of genealogy, the
finger of chronology; the finger of events
all five fingers pointing in one direction.
Christ is the overlapping figure of all time.
He Is the yoX humana In all music, the
gracefullest line in all sculpture, the most
exquisite mingling of lights and shades in
all painting the acme OF all climaxes, the
dome of all cathedraled grandeur and the
peroration of all splendid language
The Greek alphabet is made up of twen-
ty-four letters, and when Christ COM
pared Himself to the first letter and the
propriated to Himself all the splendors
that you can spell out with those two let
tiers and all the letters between them. 81
am the all ha and omega, the beginning
and the end, the first and the last" Or,
# you prefer the words of the text,
'Above all"
1t means, after you have piled up all
Alpine and Himalayan attitudes, the glory
of Christ would have to spread it's wings
and descend thousand leagues to touch
those SUBMITS. Pelion, high mountain
OF Thessaly; Ossa, high mountain, and
Olympus, a high mountain, but mythology
tells us 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 a complete
failure. And after all the giants-Isaiah
and Paul, prophetic and apostolic giants;
Raphael and Michael Angelo, artistic
giants; cherubim and seraphim and arch
angel, celestial giants-have failed to climb
to the top of Chrst's glory they might all
well unite in the words of the text and
say, He that cometh from above is above
all"
First, Christ must be above all else in
our preaching. There are so many books
on homietics scattered through the world
that all laymen, as well as all clergymen,
have made up their minds what sermons
ought to be. That sermon is most effec-
tual which most pointedly puts forth
Christ as the pardon of all sin and the
correction of all evil, individual, social, po-
ltical, national. 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 discourse have
frequent mention of justification, sanctifi-
cation, covenant of works and covenant of
grace, therefore it must be profoundly
evangelical, while they are suspicious of a
discourse which presents the same truth,
but under different phraseology. Now, L
say there is nothing in all the opulent
realm of Anglo Saxonism or all the word
treasures that we inherited from the Latin
and the Greek and the Indo European,
but we have a right to marshal 1t IN rell-
gious discussion. Christ sets the example.
His illustrations were from the grass, the
flowers. the spittle, the salve, the barnyard
fowl, the crystals of salt, as well as from
the seas and the stars, and we do not pro
pose in our Sunday-school teaching and in
our pulpit address to be put on the 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 write upon the tables Of stone
Words. What did Christ utter on Mount
Olivet? Words. Out of what did Christ
strike the spark for the illumination of the
universe? Out 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 with
out the ship? What you need, my friends,
in all your work, in your Sunday school
class, in your reformatory institutions,
and what we all need is to enlarge our vo-
cabulary when we come to speak about
God and Christ in heaven. We ride a
few old words to death when there is such
an ilimitable resource. Shakespeare en-
ployed $4,000 different words for dramatic
purposes Milton employed 5000 different
words for poetic purposes; Rufus Choate
employed over IL 900 different words Tor
legal purposes, but the most of us have
less than a Thousand words that we can
manage, less than 800, 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 it, and II 1T
has never been used in that direction be-
fore all the more shall we use it. When
we come to speak of the glory OF Christ
the conqueror, we are going to draw our
Smiles from triumphal arch and oratorlo
and everything grand and stupendous The
French navy has eighteen flags by which
they give signal, but those eighteen flags
they can put into $1,000 different combina-
lions, combinations infinite and varieties
everlasting. And let me say to young men
who are after while going to preach
Jesus Christ, you will have the largest lib
erty and unlimited resource. You only
have to present Christ in your own way.
Jonathan Edwards preached Christ in
the severest argument ever penned, and
John Bunyan preached Christ in the sub
FINEST allegory ever composed. Edward
Payson, sick and exhausted, leaned up
against the side of his pulpit and wept out
his discourse, while George Whitehed,
with the manner and the voice and the
art of an actor, overwhelmed his auditory.
1t would have been a different thing ii
Jonathan Edwards had tried to write and
dream about the pilgrim progress to the
celestial city or John Bunyan had at
tempted an essay on the human will.
Brighter than the light, fresher than the
fountains, deeper than the seas, are these
gospel themes. Song has not melody,
flowers have no sweetness, sunset sky has
no color, compared with these glorious
themes These harvests of grace spring
up quicker than we can sickle them.
Kindling pupits with their fire and pro
ducing revolutions with their power, light
ing up dying beds with their glory, they
are the sweetest thought for the poet, and
they are the most thrilling illustration for
the orator, and they offer the most in
tense scene for the artist, and they are to
the ambassador OF the sky all enthusiasm.
Complete pardon for direst guilt. Sweet
est comfort for ghastliest agony. Bright
I l. .lg..H