The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-07-23
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
sv THE REV. FRANK DE WITT TALMAoE. D. ..

DE WITT IAEmAAEs Qs hss
 instant would be changed into midnight. Power, power, omnipotent, infinite powerl Do you wonder that the glory and the majesty of the coming Christ were sym bolized by Jesus himself in the sublime scenic effects of -.the lightninss coming out of the east and shining even unto the west?"
 Swifter Than a Bullet.
 I fear that our artists and poets and religious readers have too often dwelt upon the humanity and the humility and the helplessness of Christ and have not emphasized enough his glory and maj esty and power as symbolized in the lightnings and the chariot clouds of his second coming. It is right and just that we should impress upon our bearers and scholars the helplessness of Christ in- carnated in the flesh of a little child. The master artist drew a true lesson for us when he made Mary and the df- vine infant sleep between the great paws of the old Egyptian statue. There was the moon lowering over the silent, bleak desert as the omniscient eye of God the Father watching his only begotten Son. There was Joseph. the carpenter grim and silent as a sentinel. keeping guard. There in the background rises the huge statue half man, half beast, chiseled ana HnCnOTeQ III us IOunUdllOnS l1Ou- sands of years before Christ was born and still there watching, watching, wait ing. waiting thousands of years after Christ is dead. Christ, the helpless Christ there. became helpless in sympathy with us. But older than the oldest rocks of the pyramids was the same life of that divine Christ. Longer than those rocks shall ever exist shall the eternal exist ence of Christ endure Greater than fha n0wer of Harnd who made IQetb1o- hem a slaughter house of innocent blood, and greater than the splendors of Ra- meses IL, whose palace grounds were once Tapped by the waters of the river Nile and whose worlSmen made the des- ert bloom as the rose, are the strength and the power and splendor of that sleeping child.
 Christ's second advent shall reveal Him an omnipotent and an omnipresent God, Christ's next coming shall be visible to all people as He is girded with glory and majesty. By the flaming swords of the lightnngs my text in symbol pictures a glorious. a sublime, 8 resplendent, 8 ee- lestial panorama. Let me repeat for you the glorious message of my text. Hear how the .sublimity of the millennial day echoes down the halls or tfme, ''As the lightning cometh out Of the east and shineth into the west, so shall the coming of the Son of man.
 Lightning travels swifter than the birds wing swifter than a rifles bullet swifter than a hunters halloo swifter than any other agency of life or death in the world. Within a few seconds if can belt the whole globe and come back to the place from which it started. It Is so swift in it's motions that the swiftest moving objects on earth seen by the gleam of the blazing lightnings always, appear to be standing still. For the light that you see flashing across the heavens only appears before your eyes in the smallest part of a sec ond
 chrst's Second Coming.
 The Rev. Mir Butler some years ago gave an account of the death of ten reap CTS he had seen killed under tree, where they had gone 10 find shelter during a thunderstorm There they were. eating their noon meal. One of the dead men at the time, Dr. Butler found had been feed ing his pet dog. Every one of the men was dead in exactly the same position in which the lightning had found him.
 Some were biting their food some held their hands filled with food halfway to their mouths. The man who had the pet dog was extending a piece of bread to, ward the dog. There he was stretching forth his hand, and as Dr. Butler said:
 'The dogs mouth was opened and his dead face had on it the expression: Give me some more. Come, master. give me some more ]" Yes, the lightning has speed swifter than any seven 1eagued boots. 1t goes so fast that it seems to go everywhere at once and then it is gone
 When Christ shall come to earth the second time he will not only come with the glory of the lightning but with the velocity of the lightning. He will come quicker than the winds, quicker than At |. come as an ordinary human visitor He will flash before you as an electric spark. Coui the suddennes of Christs coming be pictured more wildly? Some years ago I was standing upon the hotel piazza in Waynesburg. ". Va, watching a magnificent thunderstorm. Suddenly great ball of fire seemed to alight upon the caves at the end of the porch. With a jump I leaped clear across the porch and into the hallway of the hotel Then, with a nervous laugh. I turned In the hall and went out again upon the piazza. Why I said to myself, If that lightning had ever hit me it would have struck me before I knew it. In an in- stant would have been dead" There was no more need of the soldier boy of the late civil war sauirmng behind the trenches when he heard the shell singing over his head If that shell was to kill him it would kill him before he could hear 1t sing. The lightning comes in a flash. Jnaa flash shall the second com
 ing of the Son of man be"
 The glory of the lightning is over towering The suddenness of it's apepar- ance is startling. But the universalty of the electric atmosphere forces and cur rents Is Just as suggestive .n its divine significance How this electric power gets into the atmosphere no scientist has ever yet been able to explain. There are many theories but theories are not necessarily facts. The scientists canno, positively tell us wing the electric su3s;ancesa are ir positively state what causes an earth-
 quake 'or why Motnit Nea4 ss gantic Kilauea the greatest Of all vol canoes, have their vomiting spells. But this fact we do know-everywhere in the atmosphere are these electric forces. Thus when two mighty storm ciouds drift toward one another one seems to be filled
 with the positive forces of electricity and the other seems to be field with the mega. tive forces of electricity. Then these two forces leap together account of their afYinities. Then there is a flash. and tho explosion soon follows Thus we find the causes of electricity everywhere. When
 the divine lightning shall appear at the second advent, if will not be Christ com ing to any one place or to any one peo~ pie. It will be a universal appearance of Christ. The second adven, snail be seen everywhere at once
 In Palace and Hut. Away up in the artics among the polar bears and the spoutng whales and the obelisks of fec the Eskimo in the un- fat Olrsp ohol n