The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-03-10


message of timely and practical
sermon the preacher gives a special
value ON the best equipment of men and
women for service, spiritual, mental and
physical. The text is l Kings vi, IS,
And he carved thereon cherubims and
palm trees and open flowers and covered
them with gold fitted upon the carved
work"
Most people have but little architec-
tural imagination. When a great archi-
tect comes to them and says, 81 am going
TO build a temple of fame or a school
house or a state capitol "a cathedral or
q palace, and it is to be so many feet
high and so many feet wide and it is
to have a large porch and a hallway
1anked by so many rooms" he might as
well be talking in Sanskrit as far as most
people are concerned Drawings and lines
and dimensions mean no more to the av-
srage mind than wife's description of a
walking suit which she is planning for
the coming season means to the average
husband.
Now, | am frank to say that for one
could never get an adequate conception
OF what the old Soomonic temple looked
like from the plans which have been
drawn for us in the Bible. l have not an
architectural magination keen enough to
construct this temple from those figures.
Some Bible students have, but / have not.
AS soon as l begin to study those plans
/ get the porches and the outer walls all
mixed up. But when the inspired author
of the Bible comes to me and shows me
one of the doors of the inner sanctuary
and says This door is not only made
out of fir wood, but it has beautiful cary
tngs thereon of cherubim and palm trees
and flowers in blossom, and all these eX-
quisite carvings are overlaid with gold,
then [ say IF one little part of that
temple was as beautiful as that, the
whole temple must surely have been an
1ridescent dream of architectural beauty.
All the gorgeous colorings of the rainbow
must there have been frozen in stone.
All the opalescent splendors of the ever
changing surface of the seas must there
have submerged. its columns and dome
and walls and mosaic floors like tidal
wave. All the divine chemistries which
produced the marvellous blendings of an
orchid patch must there have been eX-
hausted in order to produce this ancient
temple, which intellectually has been the
marvel of the ages From the perfection
of the little we can in imagination con-.
ceve of the perfection of the whole.
From the beautiful carvings of two doors
of the inner sanctuary we can eaten a
glimpse of what must have been the
beautiful entirety of the whole structure.
And he carved cherubims and palm trees
and open flowers and covered them with
gold fitted upon the carved work. y
If you ride through some of the vine
yards now growing upon the hillsides
where once stood the ancient capitol or
Samaria and find there the stone walls
made out of most beautifully carved
stones and wonderfully designed pillars
FOR MI
you at once say. 1.-THE architect who de-
signed those temples must have been
great lover of the beautiful Thus when
we read that the fir tree doors OF the
inner. sanctuary were carved by mas
ter hand into figures of cherubim and
pal.n trees and flowers in blossom and
all covered with gold we have a right
TO saw that the God who designed that
ancient temple was God who loved
the beautiful. We have only to look
around us at the mountains. the valleys
the trees and the flowers and the glorious
sunsets to be confirmed in that belief.
want this morning to take a step fur
Ter. The God who loves beauty in ma
ture and beauty in architecture loves also
beauty in character AS he directed Sol
ONION to adorn the temple with carvings.
so he ordains that our characters shall
be adorned God wishes us to consecrate
TO His service beautiful body. beau
tiful mind. a beautiful soul, a beauti-
full temple. a beautiful church service,
a beautiful home and a beautiful store
and as far as possible make everything
beautiful for His dear name. "And He
carved thereon cherubims and palm trees
and open flowers and covered them with
gold fitted upon carved work"
Temple of the Holy Ghost.
The physical body has been aptly called
'the temple of the Holy Ghost" There