Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1907-03-21
Caln1aQe
Sermon
BY Rev.
Frank De Witt Talmaee, d. d.

brmon the preacher outlines In imagi
htion the dramatic story Of charac
pr of the time of Christ whose ex
erience has remarkable interest for
be people of today. The text Is Mat
new xvii. "a, Truly this was the
pn of God"
No picture of the cruciflxion is per-
ct unless the face of Jesus Christ Is
,e center and the absorbing theme.
II other parts of the picture must
bnverge toward That divine face or
diate from It even as the spokes of
le wheel branch out from the hub.
here may be three crosses, but Jesus
.oss must be the central cross. There
NY I've soldiers there gambling for n
.lze. but mat prize must be the gar
ents of Jesus Christ. There may he
long line of scoffcrs and Knockers
bid snecrers and blasphemers passing
J, but they must all have their eyes
veted upon the dying Lord. The
favens may he black and the rocks
ven, but through the blackness Of
at midnoon there must be some
sam of light lowering about the
eeding brow of the dying Jesus. All
rts of the cruciilxion scene must
|ncenter in the personality of the
ief figure of the divine or universal
hgedy, the death of him whose atom
G blood was shed that whosoever
|leveth on him should not perish,
be have everlasting life.
But. though we would not for one
slant turn your chief thought OF the
ucifXion from our Divine Lord. yet
order to bring Christs saving sac
Ace little closer we would this
prning have you watch the upturned
ce of a Roman soldier who is stand
e at the foot of the cross and with
tstretched arms is uttering the words
my text, Who is this centurion?
here did he come from? What was
B past life? Why was he led TO be
we IN the divinity of our Master and
ng? These are questions which |
pud like to answer in an imaginative
n.y. for in all the Bible We do not
ad one word about him except that
was a captain or petty line officer
the Roman army and that he was
tailed by his superior officer to see
pit Christ was executed according 10
Roman law. And yet in an mag
alive way | believe we can read be-
cen the lines and trace this cen
rion's life step by step from his era
to his spiritual surrender at the
BIT OF the cross, where today we are
gathered to worship our dying Lord.
n the first place, imagine that this
nturion was once a Roman youth
ho was born amid the pure. sweet
lolesome country life Of old Italy
that | do not mean he came of an
lorant poverty stricken family but
believe he came OF an Italian land.
lining family which had neither pow
" nor riches, but had purity in do
hstic life, refinement of home asso'
tons and had all which was posi-.
in heather land to make life
re and sweet and wholesome. In
her words, l believe this Roman sol
pr came from family like that OF
ndreds and thousands which lived
fore the civil war in Georgia anC
lbama and Kentucky and Nirginlf
n Tennessee and the Carolinas
ese families had their slaves Il
prk their plantations, but they lived
something good besides money
liking. They lived for the noble pur
Sc Of making true, brave, mani!
N out Of their boys and noble. vir
bus wives and mothers out of theil
lighters And, what Is more. they
only strove 10 make noble. pur,
IN and women out of their children
as a rule in the Augustnian age
pm which this Roman centurion
rung they accomplished what the!
uggled for.
Not All immoral
Is very grave mistake to suppos
It rural Italy in the time of Angus
was like immoral Rome. You cal
more judge the country life of Ital
the moral standards of the socia
Of Caesars capital than you ca
ge the moral standards of Franc
that Of Paris or the pure, sweo
lntry life Of our own land by tn
ndalds OF the Tenderloin district @
W York or by the social scandals @
Inner resorts. The more | have rea
man history the more | am impress
with the fact that Rome was nc
Y the immoral cesspool Of all Italy
of all the foreign capitals and til
entries OF the world. DO you NJ
member the famous sentence of il
PAL "In Tiberium defuxit Orontes
s translated means. Into the Tlbt
Orontcs emptled itself" Wher
the Orontes river? Did it LITERAL
" into the Tiber? No. The Oronte
pr was away off in Syria, In orde
empty itself into the Tiber it woul
re to flow through the Mediterranean
tiers, as the Thames to empty int
Rhine would have to jump III
glish channel. Now, what did Juv'
mean by that sentence: Why, sin
this: The Orontes was the rive
bn whose banks eastern Antioch wa
ut, as Paris is built upon the bank
|the river Seine. Juvenal was poe
" saying, "All the filth and the In
raj rottenness of Antioch and OF a
eastern cities We're emptled in
me as the river Orontes figurative
pties its filth into the river Tibe
IN whose banks the Roman capt.
built"
10 q r