Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-04-26

EcenQ thousand leagues 10 toucn
Vsummits. Peion, high mountain
Fhessaly; Ossa, high mountain, and
tnpus, a high mountain, but mythology
ells Us when the giants varied 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 Christ's glory they might all
well unite in the words of the text and
say, ''He that cometh from above is above
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 we'll 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-
iitical, national. There is no reason why
we should ring the endless changes on
few phrases. There are those who think
that if an exhortation or a discourse have
frequent mention of justification, sanctit.
cation, covenant of works and covenant OF
grace, therefore it must be profoundly
evangelical, while they are suspicious of
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-Europeap,
but we have right to marshal it in reli-
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;
I 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
AlmightS 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
ind what we all need is to enlarge our vo-
ca,ulary when we come to speak about
Coz and Christ in. heaven. We ride a
few old words TO oeath when there Is such
an illimitable resource. Shakespeare EN-.
Dloved $4,000 different words for dramatic
purposes. Milton employed 5000 different
words for poetic purposes; Rufus Choate
employed over IL 900 different words for
legal purposes, but the most of us have
less than thousand words that we can
manage, less than 500, and that makes us
so stupid. -.
When we come to set forth the love of
Christ. we are going to take the tenderest
Dhraseology wherever we find it, and if it
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 oratorio
and everything grand and stupendous. The
French navy has eighteen flags by which
thew give signal, but those eighteen flags
they can put into $4,000 different combina-
tions, 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 Whlteheld,
with the manner and the voice and the
art of an actor, overwhelmed his auditory.
Tt would have been a different thing If
Jonathan Edwards had tried to write and
dream about the pilgrims 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
cosDel themes Song has not melody,
flowers have no sweetness, sunset sky has
no color, compared with these glorious
themes. These harvests OF grace spring
I'M quicker than we can sickle them
Kindhng pulpits with their fire and pro-
ducing revolutions with their power, light
inc uD diving beds with their glory, they
are the sweetest thought for the poet, and
thew are the most thrilling illustration for
the orator, and they offer the most in
tense scene for the artist, and they are to
tbe ambassador of the sky all enthusiasm.
Complete pardon for direst guilt. Sweet
est comfort for ghastlest agony Bright
est hope for grimmest death: Grandest
resurrection for darkest sepulcher.
ooh. what a gospel to preach! Christ
over all in it. His birth, His suffering,
His miracles, His parallels, His sweat, His
fears, His blood, His atonement, His in
tercession-what glorious themesi Do we
exercise faith? Christ is its object. Do
we have love? 1t fastens on Jesus. Have
we fondness for the church? 1t is be-
cause Christ died for it. Have we hope
of heaven? 1t is because Jesus went ahead,
the herald and the forerunnerr,
~ The royal robe of Demetrips was SO
costly, so beautiful, that after he had put
~ lie robe of Christ, richer than that, the
n r1lT and wannest and the worst may
wear. where sin abounded grace may
much more abound"
"Oh, my sins, my SINS" said Martin
Luther to Staupitz; "my sins, my Gin"
The fact is that the brawny German stu,
dent had found Latin Bible that hs nag
made him quake. and nothing else ever did