The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1901-11-01
DR.TALrlAGE'S SERHON
The Eminent Dlvine's Sunday
Discourse.
Subjects The Charm Of the Christian
Religion - II llluminates and Bright
ems the Lives Of Men and Women
The Beauty OF Gods Love.
Copyright l90ll


Copyright. i9u.l
WASHINGTON, ID. C.-The charm OF an
exalted religion is by DR.. Taimage in this
discourse illustrated and commended;
text, job xviii, II, "Ihe crystal cannot
equal It,"
Many Of the precious stones Of the
Bible have come TO prompt recognition,
but for the present ! take up the less
valuable crystal. job, in my text, COM
pares saving wisdom with a specimen of
topaz. An inhdel chemist or mineralogist
would pronounce the latter worth more
than the former, but Job makes an intel
ligent comparison, looks at religion and
then looks at the crystal and pronOunces
the former az of far superior value to the
latter exclaiming in the words Of my
! text, THE crystal cannot equal 1t"
! Now, it is not a part of my sermonic de-
| sign to depreciate the crystal. whether 1t
| be found in Cornish mine or Harz Mount
! ain or Mammoth Cave or tinkling among
| the pendants of the chandeliers of a pal
ace. The crystal is the star of the mount
ain; it is the queen of the cave; 1t is the
eardrop Of the hills; it finds its heaven in
/ the diamond. Among all the pages Of nat
i ural history there is no page more inter-
esting to me than the page crystallogra-
! phc. But / want to show you that Job
was right when, taking religion IN one
! hand and the crystal in the other, he de-
| clared that the former is of far more value
/ and beauty than the latter recommending
it to all the people and to all the ages,
declaring, "The crystal cannot equal it."
In the first place remark that religion
is superior to the crystal IN exactness.
! That shapeless mass Of crystal against
which you accidentally dashed your foot
is laid out with more exactness than any
earthly city. There are six styles of crys-
Utilization and all of them divinely or
dained. Every crystal has mathematical
precision. Gods geometry reaches through
it, and it is a rhomboid or in some way it
has a mathematical figure. Now, religion
beats that in the simple fact that spiritual
accuracy is more beautiful than material
accuracy. Gods attributes are exact
Gods law exact, Gods DEGREES exact, Gods
management of the world exact. Never
counting wrong, though He counts the
grass blades and the stars and the sands
and the cycles. His providence never
dealing with us perpendicularly when
those providences ought to be obique, nor
laterally when they ought to be vertical.
Everything in our life arranged without
any possibility of mistake Each life
siX-headed prism. Born at the right time,
dying at the right time. There are no
happen SOS" in our theology. If l
thought this was a slipshod universe l
would be in despair. God is not an An
archst. Law, order, symmetry, precision,
a perfect square, perfect rectangle,
perfect rhomboid, a perfect circle. The
edge of Gods robe of government never
trays out. There are no loose screws in
the worlds machinery 1t did not just
happen that Napoleon was attacked with
indigestion at Borodino so that he became
incompetent for one day. 1t did not just
happen that John Thomas, the mission
airy, on a heather island, waiting for an
outfit and orders for another missionary
tour, received that outfit and those or
ders in a box that foated ashore, while
the ship and the crew that carried the box
were never heard of. believe in partic-
ular providence. believe Gods geometry
may be seen in all our life more beauti-
fully than in cTystallography. Job was
night, 1.-The crystal cannot equal it"
Again, l remark that religion is supe-
rior to the crystal in transparency. We
know not when or by whom glass was first
, discovered. Beads of it have been found
in the tomb OF Alexander Severus, Vases
, of it are brought up from the ruins OF
Herculaneum. There were female adorn-
ments made out of it 5000 years ago
those adornments found now attached to
the mummies of Egypt. A great many
commentators believe that my text means
, glass. What would we do without the
crystalline crystal in the window to KEEP
out the storm and let in the day, the crys
tai over the watch, defending its delicate
. machinery, yet allowing us to see the hour
the crystal of the telescope, by which the
i, astronomer brings distant worlds so neal
I he can inspect them?
t Oh, the trumphs of the crystals in the
I celebrated windows of Rouen and Sails
(. bury But there is nothing. SO transpar
ent in a crystal as in our holy religion
: 1t is a transparent religion. You put i
t to your eye, and you see man-hls sin
d. his soul, his destiny. You look at God
and you see something of the grandeur o
= His character 1t is a transparent reli
I gion. Infdels tell us it is Opaque. d.
q you know why they tell us it is opaque
1t is because they are blind "The nat
l. ural man receiveth not the things of Coz
G because they are spiritually discerned. =
+ There is no trouble with the crystal; tn
y trouble is with the eyes which try to TOOL
T. through it. We pray for vision, Lord
e that our eyes might be opened Whel
(. the eye salve cures our blindness then W
find that religion is transparent.
1t is a transparent Bible. All the mount
aims of the Bible come out-Sinai, tn
mountain of the law; Pisgah, the mount
\ ain Of prospect; Qlivet, the mountain o
instruction; Calvary, the mountain of sac
rifice. Ali the rivers of the Bible com
out--Hidekel, or the river Of paradisaica
beauty; Jordan, or the river of hol
chrism; Cherith, or the river of prophet
supply; Nile, or the river of palaces, an
the pure river of life from under tn
throne, clear as crystal While readin
this Bible, after our eyes have bee
touched by grace, we find it all transpal
ent and the earth rocks, now with crU
ciixion agony and now with judgment tel
6 ror, and Christ appears in some of His %
- titles, as far as / can count them-th
Bread, the Rock, the Captain, the Con
mander, the Conqueror, the Star, and o
and beyond any capacity of mine to II
bcoreo Tra,s1orov,f ro1tO;orf