Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1895 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

TALKS ON THE MOST CONSPICUOUS FIGURE IN HISTORY. A Sermon that Must Be Full of Inspiration to Christians Everywhere Christ the Object of Faith and Love and Hope—Treasures in Heaven. "t* ~v . ~ Christ Is the Chief. For his sermon for Sunday afternoon, Rev. Dr. Talmnge selected a topic which must prove full of inspiration to Christians everywhere. The title of his discourse was "The Chieftain,” and the text, “The clnefest among ten thousand,” Canticles v„ 10. The most conspicuous character of history steps out upou the platform. The finger which, diamonded with light, pointed down to him from Bethlehem sky, : was_only g ratification of the finger of prophecy, the finger of genealogy, the finger of chronology, the finger of events . —-all five fingers pointing In one direction. - Christ is the overtopping figure of all time. He is the “vox hamana” in »aU music, the grocefulest lint in all sculpture, the most exquisite mingling of lights and shades in ail painting, the acme of all climaxes, the dome of all catliedraled grandeur and the peroration of all language. The Creek alphabet is made up of twen-ty-four letters, and when Christ compared himself to the first letter and the last letter, the Alpha and the Omega, he appro-priated-to himself all the splendors that you-can spell out either with those two j letters or all the lettefs between, them, “I I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” ,

The Chieftain. What does that Scripture mean which says of Christ, "He that coiaeth from above, is above all V” It means after you, have piled up all Alpine and Himalayan altitudes the glory of Christ would have to spread its wings and descend a thousand leagues to touch those summits. Pel ion,, a high mountain of Thessaly; Ossa, a high mountain, and Olympus, a ,Vnen the giants tvalfcd against \he gods they piled up these three mountains, and front the top of them proposed to scale the heavens, but tire height was not great enough, anti there was a complete failure. And after all the giants—lsaiah and Paul, prophetic and apostolic giants; Raphael and Michael Angela, .artistic giants; cherubim and seraphim and archangel, celestial giants—have failed to climb to the top of Christ's glory they "might - alLwetl unitc iir the words of Paul and cry out, “Above all!” ‘Above all!” But Solomon in my text prefers to call Christ “The Chieftain.” and so to-day I hail him. First, Christ must be chief in our preaching. There are so many books on homiletics scattered through the country that all laymen, as well as all clergymen, have made up their minds what sermons ought to be. That sermon is the most effectual which most pointedly puts forth Christ as the pardon of all sin and the correction of all evil—individual, social, political, national. There is no reason why we should ring the endless changes on a few phrases. There are those who think that if an exhortation or a discourse have frequent mention of justification, sanctification, covenant of works and covenant of grace, therefore It must be profoundly evangelical, while they are suspicious of a discourse which presents the same truth, but under different phraseology. Now, 1 say there is nothing in all the opulent realm of Ang! >-Saxonism, of nil the word treasures that w.e inherited from the Latin and the Greek and the Indo-Kuropean, but we have a right to marshal it in religious discussion. Christ sets the example. His ilustrations were from the grass, the flowers, the barnyard fowl, the crystals of salt, as well as from the seas and the stars, and we do not propose in our Sunday school teaching and in our pulpit address to be put on the limits.

Words and Their Power. I know that there is a great deal said In our day agai nst words, as though they were nothing. They misused, but they have an imperial power. They are the bridge between soul and soul, between Almighty God and the human race. What did Christ write upon the tables of stone - ? Words. What did Christ utter on Mount Olivet? Words. Out of what did Christ strike the spark for the illumination of the universe? Out of words. '•‘Let there be light,” and light was. Of course, thought is the cargo, and words are only the ship: but how fast would your cargo get on without the ship? What you need, my friends, in all your work, in your Sabbath school class, in your reformatory institutions and what we need to enlarge our vocabulary when we •;ome to speak about God and Christ and ueaven. We ride a few old words to death, when there is such illimitable resource. Shakspeare employed 15,000 different words for dramatic purposes; Milton employed 8,000 different words for poetic purposes; Rufus Choate employed over 11,000 different words for legal purposes, but the most of us have less than 1,000 words that we can manage, and that makes us so stupid. When we come to set forth the love of Christ we are going to take the tenderest phraseology wherever we find it, and if it has never been used in that direction before all the more shall we use it. When we come to speak of the glory of Christ the conqueror we are going to draw our similes from triumphal arch and oratorio and everything graiuKaffu stupendous. The French navy have Eighteen flags by which they give signal,Jauf those eighteen flags they can put 1nwr06,900 different combinations. And I have to tell you that these standards of the cross may be lifted into combinations infinite and varieties everlasting. And let me say to these young men who come from the theological seminaries into our services, and are, after awhile, going to preach Jesus Christ: l'ou will have the largest liberty and unlimited resource. You only have to present Christ in your own way.

Christ’*} Power. Brighter than the light, fresher than the fountains, deeper than the seas, are all these gospel themes. Song has no melody, flowers no sweetness, sunset sky no color compared with these glorious themes. These harvest aef grace spring up quicker than we can sickle them. Kindling pulpits with their fire and producing revolutions with their power, lighting up dying beds with their glory, they are the sweetest thought for the poet, and they are the most thrilling illustration for the, orator, and they offer the most intense scene for the artist, and they fire to the embassador of the sky all enthusiasm.

Complete pardon for direst guilt. Sweetest comfort for ghastliest agony. Brightest hopq for grimmest death. Grandest resurrection for darkest sepulcher. Oh, what a gospel to preach! Christ the chief. His birth, his suffering, his-miracles, his parables, his sweat, his tears, his blood, his atonement, his intercession —what glorious themes! Do we exercise faith? Christ is its object. Do we have love? Ft fastens on Jews, —Ha vfc-we* fondness for the church? It is because Christ died for it. Have we a hope of heaven? It is because Jesus went there, the herald and the forerunner. The royal robe of Demetrius was so costly, so beautiful, that after he had put it off uo one ever dared to put it on; but this.robe Of Christ, richer than that, the poorest and the weakest and the worst may wear. “Where sin abounded grace may much more abound.” <

“Oh, my sins, sms,” said Martin Luther to Staupitz,' “my sins, my sins!” The fact is that the brawny German student had found a Latin Bible that made him quake, and nothing else ever did "make him quake, and when be found how, through Christ, he wns pardoned and saved, be wrote to a friend, saying: “Come over and join us great and awful sinners saved by the grace of God. —You seem to be only a slender sinner, and you don't much extol the mercy of God; but we that have been such very awful sinners praise his grace the more now that we have been redeemed.” Can it be that you are so desperately egotistical that you feel yourself in first-rate spiritual trim, and that from the root of the hair to the tip .of the toe you are scarless and immaculate? What yon need is a lookingglass, and here it is in the Bible. I’oor and wretched and miserable and blind and naked from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, full of wounds and putrefying sores. No health in us. And then take the fact that Christ gathered up all the notes against us and paid them, and then offered us tiro receipt! And how much we need him in our sorrows! We arc independent of circumstances if we have his grace. Why, he made Paul sing in the dungeon, and under that grace St, j’olin from desolate Patmos heard the blast of the apocalyptic trumpets. After all other candles have been snuffed out, this is the light that gets brighter and brighter unto the pitied day; ana a net, under the hard hoofs of calamity, all the pools of worldly enjoyment have been trampled into deep mire, at the foot of the eternal rock the Christian, from cups of granite lily rimmed, put out the thirst of his soul.

Consolation for the Dying:.' T~ Agatn, I remark that Christ is chief indying alleviations. I have not any sympthy with the morbiditv abroad about our demise. The emperor of Constantinoplearranged that cn the day of his coronation the stonemason should come and consult him about the tombstone that after awhile he would need. And there are men who are monomanlacal on the subject of departure from this life by death, and the more they think of it the less they are prepared to go. This is an unmanliness not worthy of you, not worthy of me. Saladin, the greatest conqueror of his day, while dying, ordered that the tunic ho had on him be carried after his death on his spear at the head of his army, and that then the soldier, ever and anon, should stop and say: “Behold all that is left of Saladin. the emperor and conqueror! Of all the states he conquered, of all the wealth he accumulated/nothing did he retain but this shroud.” I have no sympathy with such behavior, or such absurd demonstration, or with much that we hear uttered in regard to departure from this, life to the next. There is a common sensical idea on this subject that you need to consider — aye only two styles of departure. A thousand feet underground, by light of torch, toiling in a miner’s shaft, a ledge of rock may fall upon us, and we may die a miner’s death. Far out at sea, falling from the slippery ratlines and broken on the halliards, wo may die a sailor’s death. On mission of mercy in hospital, amid broken bones and reeking leprosies and raging fevers, we may die a philanthropist’s death. On the field of battle, serving God and our country, slugs through the heart, the gun carriage may roll over us, and we may die a patriot's death. But, after all, there are only two styles of departure—the death of the righteous and the death of the wicked —and we all want to die the former. God grant that when that hour comes you may be at home. You want the hand of your kindred in your hand. You want your children to surround you. You want the light on your pillow from eyes that have long reflected your love. You want your room still. You do not want any curious strangers standing around watching ;p>u. You want your kindred from afar to hear your last prayer. I think that is the wish of all of us. But is that all? Can earthly friends hold us up when the billows of death come up to the girdle? Can human voice charm open heaven’s gate? Can human hand pilot us through the narrows of death into heaven’s harbor? Can any earthly friendship shield us from the arrows pf death, and in the hour when satan shall practice upon us his infernal archery? Vo, no, no, no! Alas, poor soul, if that is all. Better die in the wilderness, far from tree shadow and from fountain, alone, vultures circling through the air waiting for our body, unknown to men. and to Lave no burial, if only Christ could say through the solitudes, “I will never leave thee, I will never forsake thee." From that pillow of stone a ladder would soar heavenward, angels coming and going, and across the solitude and the barrenness would come the sweet notes of heavenly minstrelsy. Their Laat Words. Gordon Hall, far from home, dying in door of a heathen temple, said, “Glory to thee, O God!” What did dying Wilberforee say to his wife? “Come and sit beside me, and let us talk of heaven. I never knew what happiness was until I found Christ.” What did dying Hannah More say ? “To go to heaven, think what that is! To go to Christ, who died that I might live! Oh, glorious grave! Oh. what a glorious thing it is to die! Oh, the love of Christ, the love of Christ!” What did Mr. Toplady, the great hymn maker, say in his last hour? “Who can measure the depths of the third heaven? Oh, the sunshine that fills my soul! I shall soon be gone, for surely no ohe can live in this world after such glories as God has manifested to my soul.” What did the dying Jane way say? “I Can a's easily die as close my eyes or turn my head in sleep. Before a few hours have passed I shall atsriti on Mount Zion with the one hundred and forty and four thousand, and with the just men made perfect, and we shall ascribe riches and honor and glory and majesty and dominion unto God and the Lamb.” Dr. Taylor. condemned to burn at the stake, on

his way thither broke away from th# guradsmen and went bounding and leaping and jumping toward the fire, glad to go to Jesus and to die for him. Sir Charles Hare, in his last momenta.had such rapturous vision that he eried,‘‘Upward, upward, upward!” And so great was the peace of one of Christ’s disciples that he put his finger upon the pulse in his wrist and counted it and observed it, and so great was hi* placidity that after Awhile be said, “Stopped!” and his life had end ed here to begin in heaven. But grander than that was the testimony of the wornout first missionary, when in the Matimrtine dungeon he cried: “I am ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me in that day. and not to me only, but to all them that love his appearing!” Do you not sr» that Christ is chief in dying alleviations?

Hope for the Redeemed. Toward the hist hour of our earthly residence we are speeding. When I see the sunset I say, “One day less to live.” When I see the spring blossoms scattered, I say, “Anohfre season gone forever.” When I close the Bible on Sabbath night I say, “Another season gone forever.” When I bury a friend I say, “Another earthly attraction gone forever.” What nimble feet the years have! The roebucks aud the lightnings run not so fast. From decade to decade, from sky to sky, they go at a bound. There is a plaee for us, whether marked or not, where yob and I wilt sleep the last sleep, and the men are now living who will, with solemn tread, carry us to our resting place. Aye, it is known in heaven whether our departure will be a coronation or a banishment. Brighter than a banqueting hall through which the light feet of the dancers go up and down to the sound of trumpeters will be the sepulcher through whose rifts the holy light of heaven streameth. God will watch you. He will send his angels to guard your slumbering dust, until, at Christ's behest, they shall roil ?way th*> stone. J So also Christ is chief in heaven. The Bible distinctly says that Christ is the chief theme of the celestial ascription, all the thrones facing his throne, all the paims waved before his face, all rthe crowns down at his feet, Chernbim to

cherubim, seraphim to seraphim,. redeemed spirit to redeemed spirit, shall recite the Savior’s earthly sacrifice. Stand on some high hill of heaven, and in all the radiant sweep the most glorious object will bp Jesus. .Myriads gazing on the scars of his suffering, in silence first, afterward breaking forth into acclamation. The martyrs, aM-theTrarerTor-the flame through which they passed, will say, “This is the Jesus for whom we died.” The apostles, all the happier sot the shipwreck and the scourging through which they went, will say, “This is the Jesus whom w e preached at Corinth, and at Cappadocia, and at Antioch, and at Jerusalem.” Little children clad in white will say, “This is the Jesus who took us in his arms and blessed us, and, when the storms of the world were too cold and loud, brought us into this beautiful place.” The multitude of the bereft will say, “This is the Jesus who comforted us when our hearts broke.” Many who wandered clear off from God and plunged into vagabondism, but were saved by grace, will say: “This is the Jesus who pardoned us. We were lost on the mountains, and he brought us home. We were guilty, and be has made us white as snow.” Mercy boundless, grace unparalleled. And then, after each one has recited his peculiar deliverances and peculiar mercies, recited them as by solo, ...I the voices will come together into a great chorus, which will make the arches echo and re-echo with the eternal reverberation of triumph.

Edward I. was so anxious to go to the Holy Land that when he was about to expire hfrliequeatlied $1(50,000 to have his heart, after his decease, taken to the HolyLand in Asia Minor, and bis request was complied .grith. But there are hundreds to-day whose hearts are already in the Holy Land of heaven. Where your treasures are, there are your hearts also. Quaint John Banyan caught a glimpse of that place, and in his quaint way he said, “And I heard in my dream, and, lo! the bells of the city rang again for joy, and os they opened the gates to let in the men I looked in after them, and, lo! the city shone like the sun, and there were streets of gold, and men walked on them, harps in their hands, to ring praises withal, and after that they shut tip the gates, which when I had seen I wished myself among them!”