The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1901-04-25
The WORLDS REDEEMER.
DR.. TaImage Gives Portraits Of Some oi
His Great Disciples and Exponents.
The Love Of Christ Set FortI.."Iie That Com
eth From Above is Above ALL"


tCoypright iaoi.1
WASHINGTON, ID. C-In this discourse
Dr. Ialmage sounds the praises of the
worlds Redeemer, and puts before us the
portraits of some of His great disciples
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 ratification of the finger OF
prophecy, the finger of genealogy, the
hnger OF chronology; the finger of events
an hve hngers pointing in one direction
Christ ls the overtopping figure of all time
lie Is the vox 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 TWEEN.
! ty-four letters, and when Christ com.
pared Himself to the first letter and the
| last letter, the alpha and omega, He an.
| propriated to Himself all the splendors
| that you can spell out with those two let.
ters and all the letters between them 81
am the alpha and omega, the beginning
and the end, the first and the last" Or,
II you prefer the words OF the text,
1t 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, a high mountain, but mythology
| tells 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
all"
First, Christ must be above all else in
our preaching. There are so many books
on homiletics scattered through the world
that all laymen, as well as all cergymen,
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
htical, 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, sanctif-
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,
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 do-European,
but we have right to marshal it in reli-
| gious discussion. Christ sets the example.
| His lluStratiOpg from tbp ora tbp
| 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 a 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 reIormatory 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
| few old words to death when there is such
| an illimitable resource. Shakespeare em'
| ployed $1,000 different words for dramatic
| purposes. Milton employed 5000 different
words for poetic purposes; Rufus Choate
employed over II 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
| phraseology 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
they 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
limest allegory ever composed. Edward
dN sun, SlCh anu eAHduSLGu, leaned up
against the side Of his pulpit and wept out
his discourse, while George Whiteheld,
with the manner and the voice and the
art OF an actor, overwhelmed his auditory.
1t 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
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 pulpits 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
est hope for grimmest death. Grandest
resurrection for darkest sepulcher.
"Oh, what gospel to preach! Christ
over all in il. His birth, His suffering,
His miracles, His parallels, His sweat, His
fears, His blood, His atonement, His in
tercession-what glorious themesl Do we
exercise faithy Christ is its object. Do
we have love? 1t fastens on Jesus. Have
we a fondness for the church? 1t is be-
cause Christ died for it. Have we hope
& L IA i oil.