Decatur Democrat, Volume 43, Number 42, Decatur, Adams County, 28 December 1899 — Page 6

(TiADLE OF CHRIST. trIADOWS AND SUNSHINE ON THAT LCV.'LY DSD. Rev. Dr. Talmage. In Hix Christmas Sern.cu, Tells t’.u- Sti.r>- of lhe Incarnation I:i r. X v. V.l’r.ietic.H Vses c* the Vcstivr.l. [Copyright. Louis K,o;«!.. I'DU.J Washington. Die. 21.-The story of the incarnation is la-re toi.l by !)r. Talmage in a uev. way. and practical use is made of tb =e days cf fv>’ivity; text. Matthew i, 17. "f.> all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are 14 generations, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are 14 generations.” From what many consider the dullest and most unimportant chapter of the New Testament 1 take my text and find it full of practical, startling and eternal interest. This chapter is the front door of the New Testament, through which all the splendors of evangelism and apostolicity enter. Three time 14 generations are spoken of in my text—that is, 42 generations—reaching down to Christ. The?’ all had relation to him, and at least 42 generations past affect us. If they were good, we feel the result of the goodness. If they were bad. we feel the result of their wickedness. If some were good and some were bad, it is an intermingling influence that puts its mighty hand upon us. And as we feel the effect of at least 42 generations past we will in turn influence at least 42 generations to come, if the world shall last a thousand years. So. you see, the cradle is more important than the grave, 1 propose to show you some of the shadows upon the Christie cradle of Bethlehem and then the sunshine that poured in upon the pillow of straw. Notice among the shadows on that infant’s bed' that there was here and there a specimen of dissolute ancestry. (Beautiful Ruth his ancestress? Oh. yes! Devout Asa one of his forefathers? Oh. yes! Honest Joseph his father? Oh, yes! Holy Mary his mother? Oh, yes! But in that genealogical ■ table were id-’ ‘-■oils a” 1 ! cruel A:.’.mon and oppressive Relioboam and some men whose abominations may not be particularized. So you see bad men may have good descendants. One pf the most cons.; rated men 1 ever knew was the son of a man who lived and died a blasphemer. In the line of an oppressive Relioboam comes a gracious and merciful and glorious Christ. Great encouragement for those who had in tiie 42 generations that preceded them, however close by or however far back, some instances of pernicious and baleful and corrupt ancestry. Effects of Ancestry, To my amazement. 1 found in those parts of Australia to which many years ago felons were transported from England that the percentage of crime was less than in those parts of Australia originally settled by honest men and good women. Some who are now cn judicial benches in Australia, and in high governmental positions, and in learned and i; / 1 prof..--. ms. and leaders in • > 1..i lit . an*, a ran I ms and granddaughters of mi-n and women who were exiled from Great Britain to Australia for arson and theft and assault and fraud and murder. So you see it is possible for the descendants of those who do wn n . to do rigid. Since we are all more or less affected by our ancestry, we ought to be patient with those who go wrong, remembering that they may be the victims of unhappy antecedents. How lenient it ought to make us in our judgments of the fallen! Perhaps they had 42 generations Lack of them pushing them the wrong way. Five hundred years before they were bora there may have been a parentage of iniquity augmented by a corrupt parentage 200 years ago. Do not blame a man because be cannot swim up the rapids of Niagara. Do not blame a ship captain because he cannot outride a Caribbean whirlwind. The father of this man who does wrong may have been nil right and his mother all right, but away I,nek in the centuries there may have started a bad propensity which lie now feels. One cf the Ten Commandments given on Mount Sinai recognizes the fa t that evil may skip a generation when the commandment speaks of visiting “rhe iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” but says nothing about the second generation, and if evil may skip one generatlcn why not two and three and four and five generations, making a mighty leap and alighting very hard upon the head and the heart of some poor victim? Better be a little merciful toward the culprit, lest after awhile some hereditary evil born in the year 1000 or 1700. having skipped the centuries. alight just as heavy upon you. Meanwhile keep carefully your family records. The old place for the family record in the Bible, between the Old a«i 1 New Testaments, is a most appropriate place. That rec rd. put in such impressive surroundings of chapter. bounded on one side by the prophecies of Malachi and on the other side by the gospel of Matthew, will receive stress and sanctity from its position. That record is appropriately bound up with the eternities. Do not simply say in your family record. “Bm-n at such a time and died at such a time.” but if there has been among your ancestors some man or woman especially consecrated and useful make a note of it for the encouragement of the following generations. Two family records of the Bible—the one in Matthew reaching from Abraham to Christ and the one in Luke beginning with Joseph and reaching back to the garden of Eden—with the sublime statement “which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.” I charge yon to this duty of keeping the family record by the 42

g. aerations which are past and the 42 generations which are to come. It is a g ;■ d t’.Jng -the uew habit abroad of seeking for one’s pedigree. *-hiulowN on the Cradle, An. her shadow on the Christie era--1 die was that it stood under a depraved king. Herod was at that time ruler and the complete impersonation of all depravities. It was an unfavorable time for innocence to expect good treatment. So dark was the shadow drop--1 iug on the cradle from that iniquitous throne that the peasant mother had to lift her Labe out of it and make hasty flight. Depraved habits of those in authority are apt to be copied by subjects. abd from the immorals of the Herodic throne I judge of the immorals of a nation. There was a malaria cf sin in the air when the infant Christ first breathed it. Thickest shawl could not keep the babe warm when in that wintry mouth with his mother he became a fugitive. Historians say that it was at a time of pence that Christ was born, but his birth aroused an antagonism of which the Bethlehem massacre was only a feeble expression. .War of the mightiest nation of the earth opened against that cradle! The influence that came forth that night from that surrounding i f camelsand sheep and oxen challenged the iniquities of all the centuries and will not cease until it has destroyed them. What a pronunciamento went forth from that black and barbarian throne, practically saying. “Slay all the babes under 2 years es age, and that wide slaughter will surely include the death of the one child that most threatens my dominion.” Awful time was it for the occupant of that cradle! If he escape the knife of the assassin, then the wild beast's paw or the bandit’s clutch or the midnight chill between Bethlehem of Judaea and Cairo. Egypt, will secure bis destruction. All the powers of earth and all the demons of hell bombarded that cradle. A Famous Town. Another shadow upon that Christie cradle was the obscurity cf the place of birth. Bethlehem was an obscure village. David, the shepherd boy, had been born there, but after he became general and king he gave it no significance, I think never mentioning it but to ask for a drink of water out of the old well to which he used to go in childhood—the village so -small and unimportant that it had to be separated in mind from another Bethlehem then existing, and so was called Bethlehem of Judaea. There was a great capital cf Jerusalem: there wcr? the 13 beautiful cities on the beach ot Galilee, any of them a good place to be born in; there were great towns famous at that time, but the nativity we today celebrate was in a village which Christ intimated had been called by some “the least among the princes of Juda.” Christ himself was to make the town famous for all time and all eternity. O men anS women of Messianic opportunity, why do you not make the place of your nativity memorable for your philanthropies—by the churches you build, the free libraries you open, the colleges you endow? Go back to the village where you were born, as George Peabody went back to Danvers. Mass., and with your wealth bless the neighborhood where in childhood you played and near by where your father and mother sleep the last sleep. There are cores i.f such villages in America being generously remembered by prosperous men during life or helped in their last will and testament, and there are a hundred neighborhoods waiting for such benediction from their prosperous sens. By some such charity invite the Bethlehem angels to come back again and over the plain house < f your nativity ring out the cld anthem cf “Good will to men.” Christ, born in an obscure place, made it so widely known by bis self sacrifices an • divine charity that all round the earth the village cf Bethlehem Las its name woven in garlands and chanted in "Te Deunis” and built in houses of prayer. Sunshine Breaks Through. But ft is time we see some of the sunshine breaking through the shadows on that cradle. For we must have jubilance dominate the Christmas festival. That was Walter Scott’s opinion when in “Marmion” he wrote: A Christmas gambol oft would cheer A poor man’s heart through half the year. It was while the peasant and bis wife were on a visit for purposes of enrollment that Jesus was born. The Bible translators got the wrong word when they said that Joseph ami Mary Lad gone to Bethlehem to be “taxed.” People went no farther then to get taxed than they do now. The effort of most people always has been to escape taxation. Besides that, these two humble folk had nothing to tax. The man’s turban that protected Lis head from the sun was not worth taxing: the woman's sandals which kept her feet from being cut by the limestone rock, of which Bethlehem is mostly made up. were not worth taxing. No: the fact is that a proclamation had been made by the emperor that all the people between Great Britain and Partliia and of those lands included should go to some appointed place and give their names in. be registered and announce ' their loyalty to the Roman emperor. They had walked 80 miles over a ■ rough road to give their names ami take the oath of allegiance. Would we ! walk 80 miles to announce our I giance to our king, one Jesus? Ctesar Augustus wanted to know by the re - ■ ord on which that man and that woI man wrote their names or had them written, just bow many people in bis i empire he could depend on* in case cf exigency. How many men would unsheathe sword for the Roman eagle and how many women could b" depended on to take care cf the wounded ’ on battlefields? The trouble is that in the kingdom of Christ we do not know ; how many can be depended on. There ' are so many men and women who never give in their names. They serve the Lord on the sly. They do not announce their allegiance to the king

who, in the battles to come, will want all Lis troops. In all our churches there are so many half and half disciples. so many one-third espousers. I They rather think the Bible is true, at i j any rate parts of it. and they hope that > i somehow Christianity will disenthrall ; i the nations. They stay away from | church cii communion days and hope i ■ when they have lived as long as they I tan in tills world they can somehow i I sneak into Leaven. Oh, give in your . I mimes! Be registered on the church ■ I record down here and in the Lamb’s j Book of Life up there. Let all the I , world know where you stand, if you have to go as far as Joseph and Mary i ' walked, if you have to go 80 miles be- , i fore you find just the right form of , I worship and just the right creed. Divine Protection. Another gleam cf sunshine striking through the shadows above that Christie cradle was the fact of a special divine protection. Herod was determined upon the child’s destruction. The monster put all his wits together in stratagem for the stopping of that young life just started. He dramatized piety; he suddenly got religious; he would leave his palace and taae chariot and have steeds whipped up. so that he could kneel at that cradle. We have to smile at what the imperial villain said when he ordered. "Go and search diligently for the young child, and when ye have found him bring me word, that 1 may go gnd worship him also.” Dore’s picture of the "Massacre of the Innocents" at Herod’s command —a picture full of children hurled over walls and dashed against streets and writhing under assassin’s foot—gives us a little impression of the manner in which Herod would have treated the real child if he could once have got his hand on it. But Herod could net find that cradle. Ail the detectives be sent out failed in the search. Yet it bad been pointed out by flashlight from the midnight Leavens. All the neighborhood knew about it. The angelic chorus in the cloud had called musical attention to it. No sentinel guarded it with drawn sword, passing up and down by the pillow of that Bethlehem caravansary. Why. then, was it that the cradle was not despoiled of its treasure? Because it was divinely protected. There were wings hovering that mortal eye could not see; there were armed immortals whose brandished sword mortal eye could not follow; there were chariots of the Omnipotent the rumble of whose wheels only supernatural? co”'d bear. God bad started through the cradle to save our world, and nothing couid stop him. You cannot reasonably account for that unhurt cradle except on the theory of a special, divine protection. And most cradles are likewise defended. C;;n< a understand why so many children, with ail the epidemics that as- , sault them, arid all their climbing to . dangerous heights, and all their perilous experiments with explosives and , their running against horses’ hoofs, and daring of trolleys and carts fast driven, yet somehow get through, especially boys of high spirit and that are going to amount to much? I account for their coming through all right, with only a few wounds and bruises, by the fact that they are divinely protected. All your charges of “Don’t do this” and “Don’t do that” and “Don’t go there” seem to amount to nothing. They are the same reckless creatures about whom you are constantly anxious and wondering what is the matter now. Divinely protected! Gleams of Kiftht. Another gleam of light, scattering some of the gloom of that Christie pillow in Bethlehem, was the fact that it was the starting place cf the most won•lerful of all careers. Looking at Christ’s life from mere worldly standpoints it was amazing beyond all capacity of pen or tongue or canvas to express. Without taking a year’s curriculum in any college or even a day at any school, yet saying things that the mightiest intellects of subsequent days have quoted and tried to expound! Great literary works have for the most part been the result of much elaboration. Edmund Burke rewrote the conclusion of his speech against Warren Hastings 1G times. Lord Brougham rewrote his speech in behalf of Queen Caroline 20 times, but the sermon on the mount seemed extemporaneous. Christ was eloquent without ever having studied one of the laws of oratory. He was the greatest orator that ever lived. It was not an eloquence Demosthenic or Cieeronic or like that of Jean Baptiste Massillon or like that which William Wirt, himself a great crater, j was overcome with in log cabin m?eting house of Virginia, when the blind preacher cried out in his sermon. "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ died like a God.” Christ's oratory was unlike anything that went before or came after. Even the criticism of the world said. "Never man spake like this man.” Dramatic? \ Why, be took up a child out of the audience and set him on a table and by the embarrassed look of the child taught humility. He sent the prosecutors of a poor, sinful woman, blushing and confounded, out of the room by one sentence of sarcasm. Notice Lis power of emphasis and enunciation when he revealed himself after his resurrection, by the peculiar way he pronounced the one word “Mary,” his power of look shown by the way Peter, the great apostle, wilted under it. The book says. “The Lord turned and looked upon Peter.” It was an omnipotent facial expression. He looked upon Peter. Power of distinct utterance, so that every one could bear. "He opened his mouth, saying.” No mumbling and indistinct utterance. He opened his mouth. His voice, which had been developed by open air speaking, was a resonant and sonorous voice, or he would not have taken the top of the i rocks of the Mount of Beatitudes for a pulpit, for that pulpit Is so high, as 1 j declare from observation, that no : speaker that 1 have ever known could

' have from that point made any audiI euce hear one word of a sermon. IDs ! power cf hyperbole: A camel trying to crowd its Lump through the eye of a sewing woman’s needle ami all that I learned talk about a gate called the | -needle’s eye” only belittling the byi perbole. Power cf sarcasm: The hypoi erites styled by him "the whole who need not a physician.” His power of ■ peroration: The crashing of the tim- ’ I ers of the poorly built house on Lie ‘ beach of the Mediterranean. Power to ■ take advantage of circumstances. I When an auditor asked him whethet I they ought to pay taxes to Cmsar. j Christ practically said. "If any gentlei man in this audience lias in bis pocket ' a Roman penny, 1 wish he would just hand it up to me." And some one handed him a penny, such as you can now find in some of the museums, the obverse of it bearing the face of Tiberius, the emperor, and the reverse the words "Pontifex Maximus.” the other title of the emperor, and then came the overwhelming answet of Christ. "Render to Caesar the things that are Casar’s and to God the things that are God’s." Rut we must not only look at him from a worldly standpoint. How be smote whirlwinds into silence, and made the waves of the sea lie down, and opened doors of light into the midnight of those who had been born blind, and turned deaf ears into galleries of music, and with one touch made the scabs of incurable leprosy fall off. and renewed healthy circulation through severest paralysis, and made the dead girl waken and ask for her mother, and at his crucifixion pulled down the clouds, until at 12 o’clock at noon it was as dark as 12 o'clock at night, and starting an influence that will go on until the last desert will grow roses and the last weak lung make full inhalation, and the last case of paresis take healthful brain, and the last illness become rubicund of cheek and robust of chest and bounding of foot, and the last pauper will get his palace, and the last sinner taken unto the warm bosom of a pardoning God! Where did all this start.' In that cradle within sound of bleating sheep and bellowing cattle and amid rough bantering of herdsmen and camel drivers. What a low place to start for such great heights! O artists, turn your camera obscura on that village of Bethlehem! Take it al! in—the wintry skies lowering, the flocks shivering in the chill air. Mary the pale mother, and Jesus the child. An Eternal Jubilee. So I have shown you the shadows and the sunshine of that Christie cradle of Bethlehem. In these Christmas times I realize that there are many cradles under shadows. Oh. the story of empty cradles nil up and down the earth, in cabins and palaces! There are standing in garrets or in storerooms cradles that will never rock again. “Rachel mourning for her children and will not be comforted because they are not." But through all the shadows break gleams of sunshine as the clouds of the Christie cradle were cleft by glorious light. Escaped from the struggles through which we have all passed and must yet pass, those little ones took heaven at one bound. Instead of an earthly career it is a heavenly career, with capacities, with velocities, with opportunities beyond our comprehension. Instead of celebrating on earth the Saviour's birth they stand in the Saviour’s presence. Instead of the holiday celebrations cf the old homestead it is to them eternal jubilee at a table where the angels of God are the cupbearers and amid festivities that resound with a laughter and a music and blaze with a brilliance and a glory "that eye hath not seen nor ear heard.” No use in wishing them a merry Christmas, for the merriments of Leaven ring out upon them from temples that are always open, amid pleasures that never die. Oh. it is not a dull heaven, but a lively heaven, for there are so many’ children there! They throng the streets. They look out of the “House of Many Mansions.” They stand on the beach to see the fleets cast anchor within the vale. They crowd the gates with greetings when the old folks come in. They clap their hands in an eternal gladness. They dance iu an eternal glee. See you not the sunshine that pours Into the shadows of that cradle until they are all gone? But shadows have their uses. There must be a background to every good picture. Turner always put at least a fleck of cloud on his canvas, and the clouds of earth will be the background to bring out more mightily the brightness of heaven. And will it not be glorious if after all this scene of earthly vicissitude we meet again in our Father’s bouse and talk over the past in an everlasting holiday? But meanwhile look out for the cradles. How much they decide for this world and the next! When Wellington was born at Mornington. England, that decided Waterloo and saved Europe. When Handel was born in Halle. Saxony, that decided the oratorios of “Judas Maccab.wus” and “Esther” and “Israel In Egypt” and “Jephthah” and “Messiah." When Eli Whitney was born at Westboro, that decided the wealth of i all the cotton fields of the south. When Gutenberg was born at Metz. Germany, that decided the libraries of all Christendom. When Clarkson was born in Cambridgeshire. England, that decided the doom of human bondage. When Morse was born at Breed’s Hill, Mass., that decided that the lightnings of heaven should- become galloping couriers or stretch a throbbing iron nerve clear under the sen. When Washing ton was born at Westmoreland, Va. that decided American independence When Christ was born at Bethlehem that decided the redemption of tlic world. Oh. look out for tiie cradles May a Betlflebem star of hope poim 4own to each one of them and everj 1 hovering cloud be filled with chanting ! angels of mercy.

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