Milford chronicle., 1901-04-26

WASHINGTON. April 21.-In this dis
course DR.. TaImage sounds the praises Of
the worlds Redeemer and puts before us
the portraits Of some Of his great dis
ciples and exponents; 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 q ratification Of the finger Of
prophecy, the finger Of genealogy, the
finger of chronology, the finger of events
all FIVE fingers pointing in one direc-
ton. Christ is the overlapping figure
of all time. He is the vox humana in
all music, the gracefulest 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 peroFation
of all splendid language.
The Greek alphabet is made up Of "a
letters, and when Christ compared him
self to the first letter and the last let
ter, the alpha and the omega, he appro-
priated to himself all the splendors that
you can spell out with those two letters
and all the letters S'tween them. Il am
the alpha and the omega, the beginning
and the end, the first and the last" or, if
you prefer the words of the text, 'above
ALL"
It means, after you have piled up all
Alpine and Himalayan attitudes, the
glory of Christ would have to spread its
wings and descend a thousand leagues
to touch those SUBMITS. Pelion, a high
mountain Of Thessaly; Ossa, a high
mountain, and Olympus, 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 Mi
chael Angelo, artistic giants; cherubim
| and seraphim and archangel, celestial
| giants-have failed to climb to the top OF
Christ'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 homiletics scattered through the worlC
all laymen as well rs all clergymeG
| have made up tlelr minds what sermons
ought t0>hQ. That sermon is most ef
fectual which most pointedly puts fortl
Christ as the pardon of all sin and TIT
correction of all evil, individual. social
political, national. There is no reasoi
why we should ring the endless change
on few phrases. There are those VIII
think that If an exhortatiOn or a dis
course have frequent mention Of justih
cation, sanctification, covenant of work
and covenant of grace that therefore
must be profoundly evangelical, Will
they are suspicious of a discourse whic
presents the same truth, but under dit
ferent phraseology. Now, ! say there
nothing in all the opulent realm of Al
glO-SaxOnism or all the word treasure
that we inherited from the Latin and tn
Greek and the Indo-E European but W
have a right to marshal it in religion
discussion. Christ sets the example. HI
Illustrations were from the grass, tn
flowers, the spittle, the salve, the BARI
yard fowl the crystals of salt. as well q
from the seas and the stars, and we d
not propose in our Sunday school teacl
ing and in our pulpit address to be pl
on the limits.