Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1901-04-27

nents; text John ill.,, 81, He that com
eth from above is above all.
The NEST 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 gencalogy, the
finger of chronology, the finger of events
-all five fingers pointing III one dlrec-
ton. Christ is the overlapping Inquire
Of ali 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 peroratloh
of all splendid language.
The Greek alphabet is made up OF
twenty-four letters and when ChfiSt
compared himself to the first letter ana
the last letter, the alpha and the omega
he appropriated to himself all the Splen-
doris that YOU can spell ous with those
two letters and all the letters between
them. Il am the alpha and the omega,
the beginning and the end, the first aud
the last" OF, il you prefer the words OF
the text, "abovc all
1t means. after you have piled up all
Alpine and IImalayan attitudes, the
glory Of Christ would have 10 spread its
wings and descend a thousand leagues
TO touch those SUBMITS PeliOn, h'gh
mountain of Thcssay; Ossa a hsh
mountain, and Olympus, high noun
tain, but mythology tells MS when thc
giants warred against the gods they piled
mp these three mountains and from the
top of them proposed to scale the heav-
ems. but the height WAS not great enough,
and there was a complete failure. Ana
after all the giantS-lsaiah and Paul pro
phetic and apostolic giants; Raphael ana
Michael Angelo. artistic giants; cherubim
and seraphim aud archangcl, 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, lie
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 ms well as all clergymen
have made mp their minds what sermons
ought TO he. That sermon is most eff
fectual which most pointedly 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 a few phrases There are those who
think that If an exhortation or a discourse
have frequent mention Of justification,
sanctifcation, covenant Of works and
covenant of grace that therefore it must
he profoundly evangelical, while they are
SUSPICIOUS Of a discourse which presents
the same truth, but under different
phraseology. Now. | say there IS moth
ing in all the opulcnt realm of Anglo
Saxonism or all the word treasures that
we Inherited from the Latin aud the
Greek and the Indo-EWopean but we
have a right to marshal it in religious
discussion. Christ sets the example. His
illustrations were from the grass, the
flowers, the spittle. the salye, 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 teach
ing and in our pulpit address to be put
on the limits.
Bridge Between Souls.
! know that there is great deal said
in our day against words, as though they
rere nothing. They may be nisuscd, but
they have an imperial power. They are
the bridge between soul ana soul, be-
tween Almighty God and the human race.
What did God write upon the tables OF
stone? Words. What did Christ utter on
Mount OHvet? Words. Out of what did
Christ strike the spark for the iilGmina-
ton Of the uuiycrscE out Of words. Let
there be light" and light was. or course
thought is the cargo, and words are only
the ship. but how fast wonld your cargo
get on without the ship What you need,
my friends. in all your work, in your
Sunday school class, in your refornatory
Institutions, aud what wc all need is 10
enlarge our vocabulary when we come to
speak about God and Christ and heaven.
We ride few old words to death when
there is such ilIimitable resource. Shak-
speare employed $4,000 different words
for dramatic purposes, Milton employed
5000 different words for poetic purposes,
Rufus Choate employed over 1000 diff
fcrent words for legal purposes, but the
most Of us have less than 1000 words
that we can manage, less than 800, and
that makes US 80 stupid.
When we come to set forth the love Of
Christ, we are going to take the tender
est phraseology wherever we find il, and
il it has never been used in that direction
before ali the more shall we use il. When
we come to speak Of the glory Of Christ,
the conqucror we are going TO draw our
SMILES from triumphal arch and oratorio
and everything grand and stupendous.
The French navy have eighteen flags by
which they give signal, but those eighteen
flags they can put into 10000 different
combinations. And / have to tell you
that these standards Of the cross may be
lifted into combinations infinite and va
rieties everlasting. And let me say to
young men who are after awhile going
to preach Jesus Christ, you viii have the
largest liberty 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 cub
FINEST allegory ever composed. Edward
Payson, sick and exhausted, leaned NJ
against the side Of the pulpit and wept
out bis discourse, while George White