The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1907-03-19
C-,aln1age
Sermon
By Rev.
Frank De Witt Talmage, D. d.

|
sermon the preacher outlines in imagi-
nation the dramatic story of Il charac-
| ter of the time of Christ whose eX-
| periencc has remarkable interest for
i the people OF today. The text is Mat
| thew xvii, 81. Truly this was the
| Son of Cod
| No picture of the crucifixion IS per-
| feet unless the face of Jesus Christ is
| the center and the absorbing theme
All other parts of the picture must
| converge toward that divine face or
| radiate from it even as the spokes Of
| the wheel branch out fram the hub
There may be three crosses. but Jesus
cross must be the central cross. There
may be soldiers there gambling for
prize. but that prize must be the gar
ments of Jesus Christ There may he
a long line of sCoffers and Knockers
and sneerers and blasphemers passing
by, but they must all have their eyes
riveted upon the dying Lord. The
heavens may be black and the rocks
riven, but through the blackness of
that midn0on there must be some
beam of light lowering about the
bleeding brow of the dying Jesus. All
parts of the cructixion scene must
concenter i'll the personality of the
chief figure of the divine or universal
tragedy, the death of him whose atom
ing blood was shed that whosoeyer
believeth on him should not perish.
b;lt have everlasting life
But, though we would not for one
crucitiXion from our Divine Lord yet
in order to bring Christ's saving sac
rifice a little closer we would this
morning have you watch the upturned
face Of a}Roman soldier who is stand
ing at the foot of the cross and with
outstretched arms is uttering the words
of my text Who is this cpntuTionf
Where did he come from? What was
his past life? Why was he led to be
lieve in the divinity of our Master and
King? These are questions which !
would like to answer in an imaginative
way, for in all the Bible we do not
read one word about him except that
he was Il captain or petty line officer
in the Roman army and that he was
detailed by his superior officer to see
that Christ was executed according to
the Roman law. And yet in an imag
NATIVE way | believe we can read be
tween the lines and trace this cen
turion's life step by step from his era
die to his spiritual surrender at the
foot of the cross, where today we are
all gathered to worship our dying Lord
In the first place, | imagine that this
centurion was once a Roman youth
who was born amid the pure. sweet
wholesome country life of old Italy.
BY that | do not mean he came of an
ignorant, poverty stricken family, but
| believe he came of an Italian land
owning family which had neither pow
erty nor riches. but had purity in do
mestic life, refinement of home ass0
Citations and had all which was posi-
BILE in a heather land to make life
pure and sweet and wholesome. In
other words. | believe this Roman sol
der came from a family like that OF
hundreds and thousands which lived
before the civil war in Georgia and
Alabama and Kentucky and Virginia
and Tennessee and the CarolinaS
These families had their slaves to
work their plantations, but they lived
for something good besides money
making They lived for the noble pur
pose of making true, brave, manly
men out of their boys and noble. vir,
tuous wives and mothers out of their
daughters. And, what is more. they
not only strove to make noble. pure
men and women out of their children
but as a rule in the Augustinian age
from which this Roman centurion
sprung they accomplished what they
struggled for.
Not All Immoral.
1t Is very grave mistake to suppose
that rural Italy in the time of Angus
tus was like immoral Rome You can
no more Judge the country life of Italy
by the moral standards Of the social
life Of Caesars capital than you can
judge the moral standards of France
by that of Paris or the pure, sweet
country life Of our own land by the
standards of the Tenderloin district of
New York or by the social scandals of
summer resorts. The more have read
Roman history the more | am impress
ed with the fact that Rome was not
only the immoral cesspool of all Italy.
but Of all the foreign capitals and the
countries of the world Do you not
remember the famous sentence of Ju
venal, "In Tiberium 'defluxit Orontes?'
This translated means, Into the Tiber
the Orontes emptied itself" Where !
was the Orontes river? Did it literally |
flow into the Tiber? No. The Orontes |
river was away off in Syria. In order |
to empty itself into the Tiber it would |
have to flow through the Mediterranean |
waters, as the Thames to empty into
the Rhine would have to jump the |
English channel Now. what did Juve
nal mean by that sentence? Why, SIM
ply this: The Orontes was the river
upon whose banks eastern Antioch was |
built, as Paris Is built upon the banks |
of the river Seine. JuVenal was poet |
ically saying. "All the filth and the I'm |