Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1891 — THE MARCH OF CHRIST. [ARTICLE]

THE MARCH OF CHRIST.

-He Bore Up Well Through Many Hardships. Crown* IMatinffnlshed Him—Hl* Leadership In Which True Christiana Proudly -• Participated—Talmage's Sermon. Bev. Dr. Talmage preached at : , Brooklyn last Sunday. Subject, “The March of Christ Through the Centuries.” Text: Revelations xix, 12. After a few explanatory remarks he said: . - In watching this march of Christ through the centuries we must not walk before Him or beside Him, for that would not be reverential or worshipful, so we walk behind Him. We follow Him while not yet in His teens up a Jerusalem terrace to a building 600 feet long and 600 feet wide, and under the hovering splendor of gateways, and by a pillar crowned with capital chiseled into the shape of flowers and leaves, and along by walls of beveled masonry and near a marble screen until a group of white haired philosophers and theologians gather around Him, and then the boy bewilders and confounds and overwhelms these scholarly septuagenarians with questions ' they cannot answer, and under His i quick whys and wherefors and hows land tvhens they pull their white I (beards with embarrassment and rub Wrinkled foreheads in confusion, and Butting their staff down hard on the '‘marble floor as they arise to go they nust feel like chiding the boldness hat allows twelve years of age to ask seventy-five years of age sucn puzzlers.

Out of this building we follow Him into the Quarantania, the mountain of temptation, its side to this day black with robbers’ dens. Look! Up the side of this mountain come all the forces of perdition to effect our chieftain’s capture. But although weakened by forty days and forty nights of abstinence, He hurls all \Pandemonium down the rocks, sug- , gestive of how he can hurl into helplessness ait our temptations; - - And now we climb right after him up the rough sides of the “Mount of Beatitudes,” and on the highest pulpit of rocks, the Valley of Hatin before Him, the Lake of Galilee to the right of Him, the Mediterranean Sea to the left of Him, and he preaches a sermon that yet will transform the world with its applied sentiment. Now we follow our chieftain on Lake Galilee. We must keep the beach, for our feet are not shod with the 'supernatural, ayd we remember what (poor work Peter made of it when he pried to walk the water. I) Christ, our leader is on the top of the tossing waves, and it is about half-past three in the morning and it t?ze darkest time just before daybreak, But by the flashes of lightning we see Him putting His feet on the crest of the wave, stepping from crest to crest, walking the white surf solid as though it was frozen snow. The sailors think a ghost, is striding the tempest, but He cheers them into placidity, showing Himself to be a great Christ for sailors. And He walks the Atlantic and Pacific and Mediterranean and Adriatic now, and if auxhausted and afrighted voyagers wilUisten for His voice at halfcast three in the morning on any sea. indeed at any hour, will hear his voice of compassion and encouragement. We continue to follow our Chieftain; and ht'*re is a blind man by the wayside. It is not from cataract of the eye or from opthilmia, the eyeextinguisher of the but he was born blind. “Be opened"‘he cries, and first there is a smarting of the eyelids, and then a t wilight, and then a mid-noon, and then a shout, “I see! I see!” Tell it to all the blind, and th ey, at least will appreciate it. And here is the widow's dead son, and here is the expired maiden, and here MS Lazarus! “Live,” our Chieftain cries, and they live. Tell it through 11 the bereft households; tell it among the graves. And there around Him gather the deaf and the dumb ind the sick, and at His word they turn on their couches and blush from awful palor of helpless illness to rubicund health, and the swoolen foot of the dropsical sufferer becoms fleet as a roe on the mountains. The music of the grove and household wakens the deaf ear, and lunatic and maniac return into bright intelligence, and the leper’s breath becoms as sweet as that of a child, and the flesh as roseate. Tell it to all the sick through all the homes, through all the hospitals. Tell it at 12 o’clock at ni"ht, tell it at 2 o’clock in the morning, it at 3:30, and in the last watch of the night, that Jesus 1 lyalks the tempest. I Still we follow our Chieftain until (the Government that gave him no protection, insists that He pay tax, and, too poor to raise the requisite $2.75, He orders Peter to catch a fish that has in its mouth a Roman stater, which is a bright coin (and you know that fish -naturally bite at any jthing bright), but it was a miracle khat Peter should have caught it at thia flrnt haul. - . Now we follow our Chieftain until for the paltry sum of sls Judas pells Him to his pursuers. Tell it to all the betrayed! If for SIO,OOO or for SSOO or for SIOO your interests were sold put, consider for how much cheaper a sum the Lord of earth and heaven was surrendered to humiliation and death. But here while following Him on a spring night between 11 and 12 o'clock, wo sec the flash of torches and lanterns and we hear the cry of a mob of Nihilists. 'They are breaking in on the quietude |of Gethsefnane with clubs—like a mob with sticks chasing a mad dog.

It is a herd of Jerusalem “roughs” led on by Judas to arrest Christ and punish Him for being the lovelist and best being that ever lived. But rioters are liable to assail the wrong man. How were they to be sure which one was Jesus? “I will kiss Him,” says -Judas, “and by that signal you will know on whom to lay your hands of arrest. ” So the kiss which throughout the human race and for all time God intended as the most- sacred demonstration of affection, for Paul writes to the Romans and the Corinthians and the Thessalonians concerning the “holy kiss,” and Peter celebrates the kiss of charity, and with that conjunction of lips Laban met Jacob, and Joseph met his brethren, and Aaron met Moses and Samuel met Saul and Jonathan met David and Orpahparted from Naomi, and Paul separated from his friends at Ephesus, and the father in the parable greeted the returning prodigal, and when the millenium shall come we are told righteousness and peace will kiss each other, and all the world is incited to greet Christ as inspiration cries out, - ‘Kiss the Son, lest He be anghy and ye perish from the way”—that most sacred demonstration of reunion and affection was desecrated as the filthy lips of Judas touched tne pure cheek of Christ, and the horrid smack of that kiss has its echo in the treachery and debasement and hypocrisy of all ages.

Now we follow our Chieftain as they carry his limp and lacerated form amid the flowers and trees of a garden, the gladioluses, the oleanders, the lilies, the geraniums, the mandrakes, down five or six steps to an aisle of granite, where He sleeps. But only a little while He sleeps there, for there is an earthquake in all that region, leaving the rocks to this day in their aslant and ruptured state declarative of the fact that something extraordinary there happened. And we see our Chieftain arouse from His brief slumber and wrestle down the ruffian Death, who would keep him imprisoned in that cavern, and put both heels on the monster, and comes forth with a cry that will not cease to be echoed until, on the great resurrection day the door of the last sepulcher shall be unhinged and flung clanging into the debris of demolished cemeteries. Now we follow our Chieftain to the shoulder of Mt. Olivet, and without wings He rises, the disciples clutching for His robes too late to reach them, and across the great gulfs of space with one bound he gains that world which for thirty-three years had been denied His companionship, and all heaven lifted a shout of welcome as he entered, and of coronations as up the mediatorial throne. He mounted. It was the greatest day heaven had ever seen. They had Him back again from tears, from wounds, from ills, from a world that never appreciated Him, to a world in which He was the chief delight? In all the world of celestial music it was hard to find an anthem enough conjubilant to celebrate the joy, saintly, seraphic, aichangelic, deific.

But still we follow our Chieftain in His march through the centuries, for invisibly He still walks the earth, and by the eye of faith we still follow Ilim. You can tell Where He walks by the churches and hospitals and reformatory institutions and houses of mercy that spring along the way. I hear His tread in the sick room, and in the abodes of bereavement. He marches on, and Nations are gathering around Him. The islands of the sea are hearing His voice. The continents are feeling His power. America will be His! Europe will be His! Asia will be His! Africa will be His! Australia will be His New Zealand will be His! Do you realize that until now it was impossible for the world to be converted? Not until every recently has the world been found. The Bible talks about “the ends of the earth” and the “uttermost parts of the world” as being saved, but not until now have the “ends of the earth" been discovered, and not until now have the “uttermost parts of the world” been revealed. The navigator did his work, the scientist did his work, and now for the first time since the world has been created has the world been known, measured off, and geographized, the last hidden and unknown tract has been mapped out, and now the work of evangelization will be begun with an earnestness and velocity as yet unimagined; the steamships are ready; the lightning express trains are ready; the print-ing-presses are ready; the telegraph and telephone are ready; millions of Christians are ready, and now see Christ marching on through the centuries. Marching on!Marching on! ! One by one governments will fall into line and constitutions and literature will adorn His name. More honored and worhiped is He in this yea*!B9l tlian at any time since the year one, and that day hastens when all nations shall join one procession, “following the Lamb withersoever He goeth. ’ Marching on, marching on!

This dear old world whose back has been scourged, ’ whose eyes have been whose heart? Jias been wrung, Mill yet rival heaven. This planet's |qrn robe of patn and crime and dementia will come off and the white and spotless and glittering robe of holiness come on. The last wound will have stung for the last time; the last grief will have wiped its last tear; the last criminal jwill have repented his last crime, and bur world that has been a straggler among worlds, a lost star, a wayward planet, a rebellious globe, a miscreant satellite, will heat the voice that uttered childish plaint in Bethlehem, and agonized prayer in Gethsemane and dying groan on

Golgotha, and as this voice cries “come,” our world will return from its wandering never again to stray. - Marching on, marching on! Then this world’s joy will be sb great that other worlds beside heaven may be glad to rejoice with us. By the aid Of powerful telescopes, year by year becoming more powerful, mountains in other stars have been discovered, and chasms and volcanoes and canals, and the style of atmospere, and this will go on, and mightier and mightier telescopes will be invented until I should not wonder if we will be able to exchange signals with other planets. And as I have no doubt other worlds are inhabited, for God would not have built such magnificent world-houses to have them stand without tenants or occupants, in the final joy of earth’s redemption dll astronomy I think will take part, we signaling other worlds and they in turn signaling their stellar neighbors. Oh what a day in heaven that will be when this march of Christ is finished! I know that on the cross Christ said, “It is finished,” buthe meant his sacrificial work was fin- - ished.

All earth and all heaven know that evangelization is not finished, but there will come a day in heaven most rapturous. It may be after our world, which is thought to have about 1,500,000,000 people, shall have on its decks twice its present population, namely 3,000,000.000 souls, and all redeemed, and it will be after this world shall be so damaged by conflagration that no human foot can tread its surface, and no human being can breathe its air, but most certainly the day will come when heaven will be finished and the last of the twelve gates of the eternal city shall have clanged shut, never to open except for the admission of some celestial embassage returning from some other world, and Christ may strike His scarred but healed hand in emphasis on the arm of the amethystine throne and say in substance: “All m Y ransomed ones are gathered: the work is done: I have finished my march through the centuries.,’! . When in 1813, after the battle of Leipsic, which decided the fate of the nineteenth century, in some respects the most tremendous battle ever fought, the bridge down, the river incarnadined, the street choked with the wounded, the fields for miles around strewn with dead soldiery from whom all traces of humanity had been dashed out, there met in the public square of that city of Leipsic the allied conquerors, the Kings who had gained the victory — the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Russia, the Crown Prince of Sweden —followed by the chiefs of their armies. With drawn swards these monarchs saluted each other and cheered for the continental victory they had together gained. History has made the scene memorable. Great and more thrilling will be the spectacle when the world is conquered for the truth, and in front of the palace of heaven the Kings and conquors of all the allied powers of Christian usefulness shall salute each other and recount the struggles by which they gained the triumph, and then hand over their swords to Him who is the Chief of the Conquors crying: “Thine, oh Christ, is the Kingdom; take the crown of victory, the crown of dominion, the crown of grace, the crown of glory.” “On his head were many crowns.”