Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1890 — THE SKY ANTHEM. [ARTICLE]

THE SKY ANTHEM.

Dr. Talmage’s Christmas Sermon in the Holy Land, at Beyrout. it Seems to Him That the Crown of Boyalty and Dominion and Power Was Hung on The Sky in Sight of Bethlehem. On Christmas Eve., Rev. T. De Witt Talmage preached to a group of friends at Beyrout on “The Sky Anthem.” His text was Luke ii, 14: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men,” on which he delivered the following discourse: At last I have what I longed for, a Christmas eve in the Holy Land. This is the time of year that Christ landed. He was a December Christ. This is the chill air through which he descended. I look u p through th se Christmas skies, and I see no loosened star hastenirig southward to halt above Bethlehem, but all the stars suggest the Star of Bethlehem. No more need that any of them run along the sky to point downward. In quietude they kneel at the feet of him who, though once an exile, is now enthroned forever. Fresh- up from Bethlehem, I am full of the scenes suggested by a visit to that village. You know that whole region of Bethlehem is famous in BibO story. There were the waving harvests of Boaz, iti which Ruth gleaned for herself and weeping Naomi. There David the warrior was thirsty, and three men. of unheard of self denial broke through the Philistine army to get him a drink, it was to that region that Joseph and -vary came to have their names enrolled in the census. That is what the Scripture means when it says they came “to be taxed,” for people did net in those days rush after the assessors of tax any more than they now do. The village inn was crowded with the strangers who had come up by the command of government to have their names in the census, so that Joseph and Mary were obliged to lodge in the stables. You have seen some of those large stone buildings, in the center of which the camels are kept, while running out from this center in all directions there were rooms, in one of Which Jesus was born. Had his parents been more showily appareled I have no doubt they would have found more comfortable entertainment. That night in the Helds the shepherds, with crook and kindled fires, were watching their flocks, when hark! to the sound of voices strangely sweet. Can it be that the maidens of Bethlehem have come out to serenate the weary shepherds! But now a light stoops upon them like the morning, so that the flocks arise, shaking their ’snowy fleece and bleatin rto their drowsy young. The heavens are filled with armies of light, and the earth quakes under the harmony as, echoed back from a cloud to cloud, it rings over the midnight hills: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men!” It seems that the crown of royalty and dominion and power which Christ left behind him hung on the sky in sight of Bethlehem. . ho knows but that that crown may have been mistaking by the wise men for the star running and pointing downward! My subject, in the first place, impresses me with the fact that indigence is not always significant of degredation. When princes arc born, heralds announce it, and cannon thunder it, and flags wave it, and illuminations set cities on fire with the tidings. —bome of us in England or America remember the time of rejoicing wh n the Prince of Wales was born. You can remember the gladness throughout Christendom at the nativity in the pala -e at Madrid. But when our glorious Prince was born, there was no rejoicing on earth. Poor and growing poorer, yet the heavenly recognition that Christmas night shows the truth of the proposition that indigence is not always significant of degradation. In nil ages there havo been great hearts throbbing under rags, tender sympathies under rough exterior, gold in the quartz. Parian marble in the quarry, and in every stable of privation wonders of excellence that’ have been the joy of the heavenly host. All the great deliverers of literature and of nations were born in homes without affluence, and from their own privation learned to speak und fight

for . the oppressed.. - man —hits held up his pine knotliglit from the wilderness until all nations and generations nave seen it, and off of his h ird crust of penury has broken the bread of knowledge ..nd religion for the starving millions of the race. Poetry, uni science, and literature, and commerce, and laws, and constitutions, and liberty, like Christ, were born'in a manger. All the gre.it thoughts which have decided the destiny of nations started in obscure cornets, and had Herods who wanted to slay them, and Iscariots who betrayed them, and rabbles that crucified them, and sepulchers that confined them until they burst forth in glorious resurrec- ■ tion. Strong character, like the rhododendron, fa an Alulae plant, that grows fastest in the storm. Men are like wheat, worth all the more for being flailed. Some of the most, useful people would never have come to posit.onsof usefulness had they not been ground and pounded and hammered in the foundry of disaster. W hen I see Moses coming up from the ark of bulrushes to be the gr aleat lawgiver of the ages, and Amos from tending the herds to make Israel tremble with his prophecies, and David from the sheepcote to sway the poet’s pen and the king’s scepter, and Peter from the Ashing net to be the great? preacher at the Pentecost. I find proof of the truth of my proposit on that indigence is not always significant of degradation. My subject also impresses me with the thought th it it is whde at "our useful occupations that we have divine manifestations. Had those shepherds gone that night into Bethlehem and risked their flocks among the’wolves, they would not have heard the song of the angels. In Other words, that m tn sees most of God and heaven who minds his own business, he all have our posts of duty, and standing there God appears to us. he are nil shop herds or shepherdesses, and We have our flocks of cares and annoyances and anxieties, and we must tend to them. We so net mcs hoar very good people say: “If I had a month or a year or two to do BOth'ng but attend to religious things r _L would be a great deal better than I am now.” You are mistaken. Generally the best people are the busy people. Elisha was plowing in the field when the prophetic mantle fell on him. Mathaw was.attend ng lb his custom house duties when Christ comma ided him to follow. James and John were mending th dr nets when Christ culled them to be fishers of men. Had they bsen snbrin rin toe sun Christ would not have called their indolence into the apostleship. Gideon was at work with the flail on the threshing floor when he saw the angel. Saul was wit h great fat gue hunting up the lost asses when he found the crown of Israel. The prodigal son would never have reformo 1 and want'd ta have returned to his father s house if he had not first gone into business, though it was swine feeding. Not once out. of a hundred times will a lazy Hinn 1 e ome a Christian. Tho o who have nothing to do are in very unfavorable uir--1

cumstances for the receiving of divine manifestations. It is not when you are in idleness, but when you are, like the Bethlehem shepherds, watching your flocks, that the glory descends and there is joy among the angels of God over yoitr soul penitent and forgiven. My subject also strikes at the delusion that the religion of Christ is glorous and grief infusing. The music that broke through the midnight heavens was not a dirge, but an anthem. It shook joy over the hills. It not only dropped upon the shepherds, but it sprang upward among the thrones. The robe of a Saviour’s righte--1 ousness is not black. The Christian life is not made up of weeping and cross bearing and war waging- Through the revelation of that Christmas night I find that religion is not a groan, but a song. In a world of sin and sick bed and sepulchers, we must ■ have trouble; but in the darkest night the heavens part with angelic song. You may, like Paul, be shipwrecked, but I exhort you to be of good cheer, for you shall all escape safe to the land. Religion does not show itself in the elongation of the face and the cut of the garb. The Pharisee who puts his religion into his phylactery has none left for his heart Fretfulness and complaining do not belong to the family of Christian graces which movelnto the heart when the devil moves out Christianity does not frown upon amusements and recreations. It is not a cynic, it is not shrewd, it chokes no laughter, it quenches no light, it defaces no art Among the happy T it is tlie liappiest. It is just as much at home on the .play-ground as it is in the church. It is just as graceful in the charade as it is in the psalm book. It sings just as well in Surry gardens as it prays in St Paul’s. Christ died that we might live. Christ walked that we might ride. Christ wept that we might laugh. i Again my subject impresses me with the fact that glorious endings sometimes have i very humble beginings. The straw palate ' was the starting point, but the shout in the midnight sky revealed what would be the glorious consummation. Christ on Mary’s lap, Christ on the throne of. universal dominion—what an humble starting! What a glorious ending! Grace begins on a smidl scale in the heart. You see only men as trees walking. The grace of God in the heart is afeble spark, and Christ has to keep i both hands over it lest it be blown out. What an humble beginning! But look at that same man when he has entered heaven. No crown able to express his royalty. No palace able to express his wealth. No scepter able to express his power and his dominion. Drink-, ing from the fountain that drips from the everlasting Rock. Among the harpers harping with their harps. On a sea of glass mingled with fire. Before the throne of God, to go no more out forever. The Spark of grace that Christ had to keep both hands over lest it come to_extinctiQn, havr ing flamed up into honor and glory and immortality. What humble starting! What glorious consummation! i The New Testament church was on a small scale. Fishermen watched it. Against the uprising walls crashed infernal enginery The world said anathema. Ten thousand people rejoiced at every seeming defeat, and said: “Aha! aha! so we would have it.” Martyrs on fire cried-: “How long, O Lord, how long!” Very humble starting, but see the difference at the consummation, when Christ with his almighty arm has struck off the last chain of human bondage, and Himalaya shall be Mount Zion; and Pyrenees, Moriah; and oceans, the walking place of him who trod the wave cliffs of stormed Tiberias, and island shall call to island, sea to sea, continent to continent, and, the song of the world's redemption rising, the heavens, like a great sounding board, shall strike back the shout of salvation to the earth until it rebounds again to the throne of God, and all heaven, rising on their thrones, beat time with their scepters. Oh, what an humble beginning! Vvhat a glorious ending! Throne linked to a manger, hsaveirty man- , sions to a stable.

A y subject also impresses me with the ‘ effect of Christ’S mission upward and ; downward. Glory to God, peace to man. \\ hen God sent his son into the world, an- j gels discovered something new in God, i something they had never seen before. I Not power, not wisdom, not love. They knew all that before. But when God sent his son into this world then the angels saw ; the spirit of self denial -in God, the spirit of self sacrifice in. God. It is easier . to love an angel on his throne than a thief on the cross, a seraph in his worship than an adullress in ber orime. VX hen the angels saw God —the God who would not allow the most insignificant angel in heaven to be hurt—give up his Son, his Son, his only, only Son, they saw something that they had never thought of before, and I do not wonder that when Christ started out on that pilgrimage the ' angels in heaven clapped their wings in triumph and called on all the hosts of heaven to help them celebrate it, and sang so loud that the Bethlehem shepherds heard it: “Glorv to God in the highest.” But it was also to be a mission of peace toman, infinite holiness—accumulated de- ! pravity. How could they ever come togeth- j er? The Gospel bridges over the distance. It brings God to us. It takes us to God. God in us, and we in God. Atonement! Atonement! Justice satisfied, sins forgiven, eternal lite secured, heaven huilt on a manger. But it was also to be the pacification of all individual and international animosities. What a sound this word of peace had in the Roman empire that boasted of the number of people it had massacred, that prided itself on the number of the slain, that rejoiced at the trembling provinces. Sicily and Corsica and Sardinia and Mrcedonia ! and Egypt had bowed to her sword and crouched at the cry of her war eagles. She gave her chief honor to Scipio and Fabius and Ctnsar-all men of blood. Vv bat contempt they must have had there for the penniless, unarmed Christ in the garb of a Nazarene, starting out to conquer all nations, There never was a place on earth where that word peace sounded so offensively to the ears of the multitude as in the Roman empire. They did not want peace. The greatest music they ever heard was the clanking chains of their captives. If all the blood that has been shed in battle could be gathered together it would upbear a navy. The | club that struck Abel to the earth has its echoe in the butcheries of all ages. Edmund Burke, who gave no wild statistics, said thpt there had been spent in slaughter thirty-five thousand millions of dollars, or what would be equal to tnat; but he had not seen into our times, when in our own i day, in America, we expended three thou- | sand millions of dollars in civil war. ‘ Oh if we could now take our position on 1 some high point and see the world’s armies march past! 'What a spectacle it would be! There go tho hosts of fsr.iel through a score of Red seas—one of water, thereat of blood. There go Cyrus and his army, with infuriate yell rejoicing over the fall of the ga’es iof Babylon. There goes Alexander, lead- | ing forth his hosts and conquering all tho world but himself, the earth reeling with tho buttle gash of Arbela and Persepolis. There goes Ferdinand Cortes, leaving his butchered enemies on the table lands once fragrant with vanilla and covered over ; with groves of flowering cac.io. There goes the great Frenchman, leading his army down through Egypt like one of its plagues, and up through Egypt like one of

its own icy blasts. Yonder is the grave ’trench under the shadow of Sebastopol. • There are the ruins of Delhi and AUahabad. and yonder are the inhuman Sepoys and the brave regiments under Haveloek avenging the insulted flag of Britain; while ’ cut right through the heart of mv native ' land is a trench in which there lie one million northern and southern dead. Oh, the tears I t)h, the blood! Oh,-the long marches! Oh, the hospital wounds! Oh, the death! But brighter than the light which flashed on all these shields and musketry is the light that fell on Beibeiem, and louder than the bray of the trumpets, and the neighing of the chargers, and the of the walls, and the groaning of the dying armies, is the song that unrolls this moment from the sky, sweet as though all the bells of heaven rung a jubilee. “Peace on earth, good Will toward men.” Oh, when will the day come —God hasten it!—when the swords shall be turned into plowshares, and the fortresses - shall be remedied into churches, and the ; men of blood battling for renowushall be- i come good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and the cannon now striking down whole columns of death shall thunder the victories of truth. W hen we think of the whole world saved we arff apt to think of the few people taat now inhabit it. Only- a very -few, compared with the population* to come. And what a small part cultivated. Do you know it has been authentically estimated i that three-fourths of Europe is yet all bar-1 one one-thousandth part of the entire globe 1 is uncultivated! ThislsHitto be cultivated, ; all inhabited and all gospelizadr'Olr, what tears of repentance when nations begin to weep! Oh, what supplication when continents begin to pray 1 Oh, what rejoicing when hemispheres begin to sing! i Churches will worship on the places where this very hour smokes the blood of human sacrifice, and wandering through the snake infested jungles of Africa Christs l heel will bruise the serpent’s head. Oh, when the trumpet . of salvation shall be sounded everywhere j and the nations are redeemed, a light will I fall upon- every town brighter than that ' which fell upon Bethlehem, and more i overwhelming than the song that fell ! on the pasture fields where the i flocks fed, there will be a song louder than the voice of the storm lifted oceans, “Glory to God in the highest,” and from all nations and kindred and people and tongues will come the response, “And on earth peace, good will toward men!” , On this Chrislmus eve I bring you goodtid-' ings of great joy. Pardon for all sin, comfort for all trouble and life for the dead. Shall we now take this Christ into our | hearts! The time Is passing. This Is the closing of the year. How the time speeds by. Put your hand on ycur heart—one,two, three. Three times less it will beat Life is passimr like gazelles over the plain. Sorrows hover like petrels over the sea. ■ Death swoops like a vulture from the mountains. Mistery rolls up to our ears like waves. Heavenly songs fall to us like stars. I wish you a merry Christmas, not with worldly dissipations, but merry with Gospel gladness, merry with pardoned sin. merry with hope of reunion in the skies... with all your loved ones who have preceded you. Jn that grandest and best sense a merry Christmas. And God grant that in our final moment 1 we may have as bright a vision as did the dying girl when she said: “Mother”--pointing with her tbin white hand through the window—“ Mother, what is that beauti- ; ful land out yonder beyond the mountains, the high mountains!” “Oh,” said the mother, “my darling, there are no mountains within sight of our home.” “Oh, yes,” she said, “don’t you see them—that beautiful land beyond the mountains out there, just beyond the high mountains. j . The mother looked down into the face of her dying child and said: “My dear,l think that must be hea.ven that, you seel” “Well, i then,” she said, “father, you come, and with your strong arms carry me over those mountains into that beautiful land beyond the high mountains.” “No,” , said the weeping father, “my darling, I can’t go with you.” “Well,” she said, clapping her hands, “never mind, never mind; I see yonder a shining one coming. . He is coming now, in his strong arms to i carry me over tne mountains to the beautiful land—over the mountains, over the higTEincuntains !’r~3_ ■-■---a......=a=== ■.