Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1903-10-12
TALMAGE
SERMON
By Rev.
FRANK DE WITT TALMACE. DID,.
Pastor Of Jefferson Park Presby-
terrain Church. CHICAGO

preacher draws the distinction between
the worldly and the spiritual estimate
OF greatness and shows the character
of the training and preparation neces-
sary for true greatness. The text is
Matthew XII. II. There hath not risen
n greater than John the Baptist
Great men. great events and great
epochs grow bigger and more colossal
as the years pass away from Them"
once wrote the biographer of Robert
Burns. Like the mountain shadows
they increase In size and their reputa-
tons iengthen in Importance as the
sun Of their day sets and the long
night OF their rest separates us from
them. Like the NEUROLOGICAL heroes
and hcroines OF old. their leaders brows
become luminous with crowns Of gold
Abraham Lincoln dead Is great deal
more honored man than Abraham Lin
coin alive. When Edwin NJ. Stanton
turned to the sorrowful group OF
friends who had gathered about the
deathbed OF the famous statesman and
said. I'VE must now leave him to the
ages" even the firm jawed secretary of
war did not realize how great a man
the ages would consider his chief to be.
No cathedral impresses us so much as
the venerable pile that is covered with
moss and creeping Ivy. Man is seldom
called great and truly great until he
has been dead at least twenty years.
But standing today under the length
ening shadows of many great reputa-
tons these imminent questions natural
ly arise in many minds: What is true
greatness? What are the elements
which distinguish the truly noble from
the merely selfishly famous? Was Jay
Gould truly n great man? In his day
no one man or collection Of men were
more feared in Wall street than he.
He was truly Napoleon of finance"
n Napoleon with this one difference
that Jay Gould never met his Water
loo. He was never compelled to sur
render, as did Daniel Drew and Cyrus
Field and hosts of other financiers who
were outmanipulated by this arch
financial manipulation.
Stamped with Divine Approval.
Can Napoleon himself truly be called
great man, great in all the elements
which go to make up true greatness?
When his companion in arms, Marshal
Lannes. was shot on the fatal retreat
from Moscow, he called the emperor
TO his side and said: Your majesty,
am your friend. | am dying, and this
is my parting advice: Give up your
merciless ambitions, or they will ruin
you, as they have already ruined thou
sands of others" Did not the dying
soldier picture the French emperor as
he was? With the penetration that
often comes to the dying ke saw be-
meath the splendor and grandeur of the
conqueror a man mean of soul, selfish
and INSCRIPTIONS. Can Robert Burns,
so morally weak that he was the vic
tim of intemperance, be called a truly
great man! Lord Byron, the licentious
destroyer; or Thomas De Quincy. the
opium eater; or Mark Antony, the trail
tor; or Cicero, the coward; or Lord Ba-
con, the taker of bribes-can they be
called truly great men?
Well, you say, instead of picking
flaws III the regulations of men of
commanding genius. tell us who is
truly great man. Give us one whose
character is stamped with the divine
approval. Describe such a one. that
we may copy his life" That will do,
my friend. and do gladly. Such a char
acter is to be found in John the Bap-
fist. Though we may go into the rich
est Of all palaces and stand upon the
most famous of all battlefields and
read the epitaphs of all the poets, phi
loSophers. statesmen. inventors reform
ers. we cannot find anywhere in any
generation up to the time Of Jesus
Christ a name standing so high as his.
OF whom Jesus said. Verify. verify.
say unto you, among them that are
born OF women there hath not risen a
greater than John the Baptist. not
outstanding he that is least in the
kingdom OF heaven is greater than he.'
John the Baptists Glory.
The purpose of this sermon is to
show why John the Baptist was great
er than all other men before Christ's
Jordanic baptism - John the Baptist
great. although he was so poor that
his home was among the rocks and
sands OF the wilderness. lying be
tween the capital and the Dead sea
so poor that his only garments were
the coarse skin OF the wild beast
through the holes OF which stretched
his long limbs and hairy chest; so poor
that his only food was the grasshop
pers or locusts and the honey which
had been hidden by the bees among
the caverns and the hills. Z
From the worlds standpoint this Il
strange portrait of a great man. Blu
how wonderful is its setting. The IA
bled portrait was OF a gold face will
a silver frame, but the portrait of Johr
the Baptist is silver face with golC
frame. Like a ruby glowing red II 4
set In a circle OF most precious dia
monds. Like n mirror of FURNISHED
brass. pure and spotless, II reflects tn
light OF a rising sun. 1t was John tn