Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1902-04-04
CHRISTIAN VIEW OF DEATH
Rev. DR.. Talmage Says About 1870 Easter
Mornings Have Weakened the Earth.
The Charge OF the Black Giant - Rout Of
the King Of Terrors.
aMM

WASHINGTON, D. G. - The Christian
view of death as the entrance to a fuller
life is presented in this Easter discourse
by DR.. Talmage from the text [ Cor. XIV,
81. death is swallowed up in victory"
About 1870 Easter mornings have wakened
the earth. In France for three centuries
the almanacs made the year begin at East
er until Charles TX. made the year begin
at January l. In the Tower of London
there is royal pay roll of Edward l., on
which there is an entry of eighteen pence
for 400 colored and pictured eggs, with
which the people sported. In Russia slaves
were fed and aims were distributed ON
Easter. Ecclesiastical councils met IN
Pontus, in Gaul, in Rome, in Achala, to
decide the particular day and after con-
troversy more animated than gracious de-
cided 1t, and now through all Christen-
dom in some way the first Sunday after
the full moon which happens upon or next
after March q is filled with Easter reJoic-
ing.
The royal court of the Sabbaths is made
ND of fftv-two. Fifty-one are princes In
the royal household, but Easter Is queen.
She wears richer diadem, she sways a
more jeweled scepter, and in her smile ma
tions are irradiated. How welcome she IS
when, after harsh winter and late spring,
she seems to step out of the snowbanl<
rather than the conservatory: to come out
of the north instead of the south, out OF
the arctic rather than the tropics, dis
mounting from the icy equinox, but well
come this queenly day, holding high in her
right hand the wrenched off bolt of Christ's
sepulcher, and holding high in her left
hand the key to all the cemeteries in Chris
tendon.
My text is an ejaculation. 1t is spun out
of halleluiahs. Paul wrote right on in his
argument about the resurrection, and OBJ
served all the laws of logic, but when he
came to write the words of the text his
fingers and his pen and the parchment on
which he wrote took fire, and he cried out,
death is swallowed up in victory" 1t
is an exciting thing to see an army routed
and flying. They run each other down.
They scatter everything valuable in the
track. Unwheeled artillery; hoof of horse
on breast of wounded and dying man.
You have read of the French falling back
from Sedan, of Napoleon's track of 10000
corpses in the snowbanks of Russia, OF re
retreat of our armies from Manassas or of
the five kings tumbling over the rocks OF
Beth horan with their armies while the
haistorms of heaven and the swords of
Joshuas host struck them with their fury.
In my text is worse discontinue. 1t
seems that black gian' opposed to con-
all the aches and pains and malarias and
cancers and distempers and epidemics of
the ages. He marched them down, drill
ing them in the northwest wind and amid
the slush of tempests. He threw up barrl-
cades of grave mound. He pitched tent of
charnal house. Some of the troops
marched with slow tread commanded by
consumptions, some in double quick COM
manded by pneumonias. Some he took by
long besiegement of evil habit and some
by one stroke of the battleaXe of casualty.
With bony hand he pounded at the back
door of hospitals and sickrooms and won
all the victories in all the great battlefields
of all the five continents. Forward,
march! ordered the conqueror of conquer
ors, and all the generals and commanders
in-chief and all presidents and kings and
sultans and cars dropped under the feet
of his war charger. But one Christmas
night his antagonist was born.
As most of the plaques and sicknesses
and despotisms come out of the east, it
was appropriate that the new conqueror
should come out of the same quarter.
Power is given Him to awaken all the fallen
of all the centuries and of all lands and
marshal them against the black giant
Fields have already been won, but the last
day of the worlds existence will see the
decisive battle. When Christ shall lead
forth His two brigades, the brigade of the
risen dead and the brigade of the celestial
host, the black giant will fall back, and
the brigade from the riven sepulchers will
take him from beneath, and the brigade Of
descending immortals will take him from
above, and death shall be swallowed up in
victory.
The old braggart that threatened the
conquest and demolition of the planet has
lost his throne, has lost his scepter, has
lost his palace, has lost his prestige, and
the one word written over all the gates OF
mausole9m and catacomb and metropolis,
on cenotaph and sarcophagus, on the lone
ly khan of the arctic explorer and on the
catafalque of great cathedral written in
capitals of azalia and Gala lilly, written in
musical cadence, written in doxologv OF
great assemblages, written on the sculp.
tured door of the family vault, is "Vic.
tory" Coronal word, embannered word
apocalyptic word, chief word of triumphal
arch under which conquerors return.
Victory! Word shouted at Culloden and
Balaklava and Blenheim, at Megiddo and
Soiferino, at Marathon. where the Athen.
ians drove back the Modes; at Poitiers.
the Saracens; at Salamis, where Themis-
tocles in the great sea fight COMPOUNDED the
Persians, and at the door of the eastern
cavern of chiseled rock, where Christ came
out through a recess and throttled the king
of terrors and put him back in the niche
from which the celestial Conqueror had
just emerged. Aha! When the jaws of
the eastern mausoleum took down the
black giant death was swallowed up in
victory" L proclaim the abolition of
death.
The old antagonist is driven back into
mythology with all the lore about Stygian
ferry and Charon with oar and boat. Mel
rose abbey and Kenilworth castle are no
more in ruins than is the sepulcher. We
shall have no more to do with death than
we have with the cioakroom at a govern.
or's or a presidents levee. We stop at
such cloakroom and leave in charge of
servant our overcoat, our overshoes, our
outward apparel, that we may not be i'm
peded in the brilliant round of the draw
ing room. We'll, my friends, when we go
out OF this world we are going to a Kings
banquet and to a reception of monarchs.
and at the door of the tomb we leave the
cloak of flesh and the wrappings with
which we meet the storms of this world.
At the close of an earthly reception, under
the brush and broom of the porter, the
coat or hat may be handed to. us better
than when we resigned it, and the cloak
of humanity will finally be returned to us
improved and frightened and purified and
glorifed.
You and I do not want our bodies re-
turned as they are now. We want to get
rid of all their weaknesses and all their
susceptibilities to fatigue and all their
slowness of locomotion. We want them
put through chemistry of soil and heat
and cold and changing seasons, out of
which God will reconstruct them as much
better than they are now as the body of
tfc roslest and health;est child that bounds
over the lawn in Central Park is better
than the sickest patient in Bellevue hospi-