The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1901-05-01
TBE TALNAGE SERMON.
The Great Divine Sounds the Praises
of the Redee mer.

puts before US the portraits Of some OF
his great disciples and ezpo1eats; text,
John iii, 81, He that cometh from
sbove is above all. ," ,
The most conspicic Us character Of
history steps out upon the platform.
The finger which dismonded with light,
pointed down to him from the Beth!e-
hem sky was only ratification Of the
finger Of prophecy, the finger Of gene
aIogy, the finger of chronology, the
finger Of events-all Eve fingers point,
ing in one direction. Christ is the
overtopping figures Of all time. He is
the 7ox humana in sll music, the most
exquisite mingling Of lights and shades
insll painting, the acme Of all clima1es,
the dome Of sll csthedraled grandeur
and the pecorstion Of all splendid
language. =.
The Greek alphabet is made up Of
q letters, and when Christ compared
himself to the first letter and the last
letter, the alpha and the omega, he ap-
propristed to himself all the splendors
that you can SPELL out with those two
letters and sllthe letters between them.
s'I an the alpha and the omegs, the
beginning snd the end, the first and the
lsst," OF, if you prefer the words Of the
text, ''aboye all.'
I 1eans, after you have piled up all
Al and Himalayan attitudes, the
glory Of Christ would have to pread its
wings and descend 8 thousand leagues
to touch those SUBMITS. Pelion, q
high mountain Of Thesssly; Ossa, 8
high mountain, ard Olympus, high
mountsin, but mythology tell rs 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 complete
failure. And after sll the giants
Isaiah ard Paul, prohetic and apostolic
giants; Raphael and Michael Angelo,
artistic giants; cherubim and sersphim
and archsngel celestial giants -haVefail
to climb to the top Of Chriss's glory
they might sll well unite in the words
Of the texs and say, he that cometh
from above is above all.
First, Christ must be above ali else
in our preaching. There are so many
books on honiletics scattered through
the world that all laymen as well IS all
clergymen have made up their minds
what sermons ought to be. That SER
mon is most efectual which most point.
edly puts forth Christ as the pardon Of
all sin and the correction Of all evil ,
individual, social, political, national.
There is no reason Why We should ring
the endless changes on few phrases.
There aSe those who think that if an
exhortstion ora discourse have frequent
mention Of justification, sanctif cation,
covenant Of works and covenant Of
g1ace that therefore it must be pro-
foundly evangelical, while they are sus-
picicus Of a discourse which presents
the same truth, but under different
phrsssology. Now, I say there is moth
ing in al the opulent realm Of Anglo
Saxonism OF all the world treasures that
We inherited from the Latin and Greek
and the Indo-European but We have q
right to marshall it in religious discus
sion. Christ sets the example. His
illustrations we're from the grass, the
flowers, the spittle, the salve, the barn.
yard fowl, the crystals Of salt, as well
as from the seas and the stars, and We
do not propose in our Sunday school
teaching and in our pulpit address to os
put On the limits.
7 know that there is greet deal said
in cur day against words, as though
they were nothing. They msy 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 utte, 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 vas. Of course
thought is the cargo, and words are only
the ship, but how fast would your cargo
get on without the ship? What you
need, my friends, in all your work, in
your Sunday school class, in your re:
fornstory Institution, and what ne all
need is to enlarge our vocabulary when
We come to speak about God and Christ
and heaven. We ride 8 few old words to
death when there is such illinitable re-
source. Shakespeare employed $4,000
different words for dramssic purposes,
Milton employed 5000 different words
for poetic purposes. Rufus Choate en-
ployed over II, 900 different words for
legal purposes, but the most of Us have
less than 1000 words that ne can
manage, less than 500, and that makes
Us 50 stupid.
When ne come to set forth the love
Of Christ, We are going to take the ten
derest phraseolog7 wherever, we fad it,
and if it has never been used in that
direction before all the more shall We
use it. When We come to speak Of the
glory Of Christ, the corqueror, We are
going to draw our similestrom trumphsI
arch and orato1io and everything grand
and stupendous. The French navy
have Is flags By which they give signal,
but those Is fsgs they can put into
$1,000 different combinations. And I
have to tell you that these standards of
the cross may be lifted into combi1a-
tions infinite and varieties everlasting.
And let me say to young men whe are
after awhile going to preach Jesus
Christ, you will have the largest liber-
ty and unlimited resource. You orly
lave to present Christ in your own
way.