The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-05-23
THE ONE ABOVE ALL.
DR.. Talmage Sounds Praises of the
Worlds Redeemer.
He Puts Before Us the Portraits of
Some of His Great Disciples and
Exponents-The GlOries
of Heaven.
| copyright, 1901, by Louis Klopsch, N. VI
| Washington,

copyright, 1901, by Louis klopsch, n. u
Washington
In this discourse DR.. Talmage
sounds the praises of the worlds Re-
deemer and puts before us the por-
traits of some of His great disciples
and eXponents; text, John 3, 81: HE
that cometh from above is above ALL
The most conspicuous character of
history steps out upon the platform.
The finger which, diamonded with
light, pointed down to Him from the
Bethlehem sky was only ratification
of the finger of prophecy, the finger of
genealogy, the finger of chronology,
the finger of events-au five fingers
pointing in one direction. Christ is
the overtopping 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 peroration OF all
splendid language.
The Greek alphabet is made up OF
"a letters, and when Christ compared
Himself to the first letter and the last
letter, the alpha and the omega, He
appropriated to Himself all the splen-
dors that you can spell out with those
two letters and all the letters between
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
1t means, after you have piled up all
Alpine and Himalayan attitudes, the
glory of Christ would have to spread
its wings and descend thousand
leagues to touch those submits.
Pelion, a high mountain of Thessaly;
Ossa, high mountain, and Olympus,
high mountain, but mythology tells
us when the giants warred against the
gods they piled up these three noun
tains and from the top of them pro-
posed 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
archangel, celestial giants-have failed
to climb to the top of Christ's glory
they may 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
fhro,oh 4ha @I,o+ III l., - I,
we'll as all clergymen have made up
their minds what sermons ought to
be. That sermon is most effectual
which most pointedly puts forth Christ
as the pardon of all sin and the cor
rection of all evil, individual, social,
political, 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
discourse have frequent mention of
justification, sanctifcation, covenant
of works and covenant of grace that
therefore it must be profoundly evan
gelical, while they are suspicious of
a discourse which presents the same
truth, but under different phraseol-
ogy. Now, I say there is nothing in
all the opulent realm of Anglo-Sax-
onism or all the word treasures that
we inherited from the Latin and the
Greek and the European but we
have right to marshal it in religious
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 we'll as from the seas and the stars,
| and we do not propose in our Sunday
school teaching and in our pulpit ad-
dress to be put on the limits.
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 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 GO on
| without the ship? What you need
my friends, in all your work, in your
Sunday school class, in your reform.
atory institutions, and what we all
| need is to enlarge our voca bulary
when we come to speak about God
and Christ and Heaven. We ride a
few old words to death when there
is such an illimitable resource
Shakespeare employed $4,000 differ
ent words for dramatic purposes, Mil
ton employed 5000 different word:
for poetic purposes, Rufus Choate
employed over 1900 different words
for legal purposes, but the most o.
US have less than 1000 words that we
can manage, less than 500, and tha
makes US SO stupid.
| When we come to set forth the love
Of Christ, we are going to take th'
tenderess phrsseology whsrsvsr VI