The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-03
SERMON
BY THE REV FRANK DEWITT TALMAcr. D. D.

New fork, April 26-in this sermon the preacher exalts love as the highest of the Christian graces. Dr. Talmage has resigned his passionate in Los Angeles, feeling the need of complete rest and has gone to Europe where he will re- main for six months He will compose no sermons during his absence. The text of this farewell sermon is taken from I Corinthians xiii, B: And the greatest Of these is love-" (R V)
 Talking with a friend before setting out on my European journey, I referred to my long cherished desire to visit the fla nous canyon of Arizona that I might study it and describe it to my eastern friends. Ut cannot be done, said my friend No living man could describe the grandeur and majesty of that wonderful scene. Just before l went there l was told that a man approached the brink of that awful chasm, and as he looked across it and down into it's depths and up into the sky he dropped upon his knees and cried: 70 God, how infinitely great art Thou. I never realized until my eyes beheld it this wonderful manifesto ton of Thy handiwork!" All that you can do when you visit the grand canyon is to be overwhelmed with the immensity of it's conception. It is greater, far greater, than your widest imagination could ever conceive"
 Well, I said to myself, if that is true there is one fact I will learn from the grand canyon. That will be it's superla- tiveness as a basis for comparison. There are things that are above and beyond utterance. Paul heard things when he was caught up to heaven that he said were unspeakable. and on another occa- sion, trying to describe the things God had prepared for them that love Him. he said that eye had not seen nor ear heard, neither had it entered into the Ta. F.lH down as one dead. When l read of these strange incidents I shall always think of the overwhelming impression which one gets from his first view of the grand canyon of Arizona. It Is a species Of measuring rule by which l estimate other impressions. It is this kind of cumi- mating comparison that Paul uses in my text.
 The Celestial Music.
 In the first place. Paul leads us into the celestial choir lofts of heaven. He gathers before us the sweet voiced sing CTS who once sang the song of the na- tivity above Bethlehem of Judea. lie leads those white winged messengers or the sky to sing until their united choruses roll about us in great tidal waves of har- mony. Some of us have heard the most famous songstresses on earth lift up their voices in praise. But never will our ears hear melodies like those celestial songs until at last as redeemed spirits we our selves are singing the song of Moses ana the Lamb before the great white throne of heaven Then after Paul has in inn agination led us up through the boule- wards of gold down past the great white mansions of the skies, and has over whelmed us with the beauty and pathos and grandeur of the inspiring oratorios of the celestial city he says to us: Ihat singing Is the most beautiful singing Of all the ages. From human lips and throat could never come music so en- chanting. But, though we could sing like that, our song would be empty and mean ingless and discordant If it had not In it that one thrilling note of love. Though I speak with the tongue of angels and have not love, 1 am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. It is love that gives celestial music it's sweetness"
 Then Paul has us sit at the feet of Hebrew teachers like Gamaliel and Hilel. He introduces to us the prophets Of old. He brings before us the wise men or the magi of the east. He solves for us all the knotty social problems of the day and leads us down amid the temples of old Egypt and amid the wonders of Nine veh and Babylon and Rome and Athens. Then he shows us the giants of faith as Titans changing the typographical con- struction of the earth Then after he has piled learning upon wisdom and h. tellectuality upon intellectuality and su- perlative upon superlative and made man omniseient as well as omnipotent he ut ters these words: And if I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but have not love. I am nothing" An, yes; love IS greater than all the knowledge contained within the walls of an AleXandrian H. brary. Love Is greater than the wisdom of King Solomon. Love is greater than the prophetic eye which can look through the black curtain which separates the present and the events that will happen millions of years hence Love is greater than the strength of the everlasting hills. Love is greater than the highest triumphs of art. For if we have not love, no mat ter how great our intellectually may be, we are as nothing. Aye, we are worse than nothing. Is not Paul's second com parison again approaching the culminat- ing superlative?
 Love the Greatest of All.
 Then, as guide leads us higher and higher over a mountain range and we climb from peak to peak until at last we stand upon the topmost pinnacle over looking all mountains rising out of ma terial into moral elevation, Paul says: Love is more than this Though you labor for others and seem to spend all
 
 men, though you become a pauper for their sake and go to the martyrs stake, if you do not love your fellow men, in Gods sight all your deeds of self-sacri- flee will go for naught. Yes, yes, How superative does oyertop superative when Paul is elaborating for us the power and the necessity of love- Now let ask our selves why love Is so essential in Gods sight and why love should be the pre- dominant passion of every human heart.
 Now, what is love? Love" says the lexicographer, lis a feeling of strong attachment to another It is pre-emi- nent kindness or devotion to another. It is affection. It is tenderness. It is the bond which binds mother to child and husband to wife and brother to sister and friend to friend" That is the definition which have abridged from different dic- tionaries That definition means this: Love is the strange power born in the human heart, which, like a long arm, reaches out and draws another life into that heart and makes the joy and the happiness of that other life more impor- tant than the joy and the happiness of it's own life" In other words, love is the power which will make a human tree graft upon itself other human branches, and then that original human tree shall live simply for the purpose of bearing luscious fruit for the benefit of some other human life In other words, true love finds it's happiness in the benefits which that human life can bring to other lives rather than for the benefits of it's own selfish life.
 The Grating of Trees.
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