Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1896 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

ft' %' ' 1 AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE ON CHRIST’S EXPATRIATION. The King Who Left a Throne, Closed a Palace ajid Went Forth to Die In a Hostile Country America the Home of the Voluntary Exile, An Imperial Exile. It is wonderful to how many tunes the gospel may be set. Dr. Talmage’s sermon in Washington last Sunday shows another way in which the earthly experience of our Lord is set forth. His text was IL Samuel xv., 17, “And the king went forth and tarried in a place which was faiToff." Far up and far back in the history of heaven there came a period when its most Illustrious citizen was about to absent himself. He, was not going to sail from beach to beach. We have often done that. He was not going to put out from ono hemisphere to another hemisphere. Many of us have done that. But he was to sail from world to world, the spaces unexplored and the immensities untraveled. No world ha’S ever hailed heaven, and heaven has never hailed any other world. I think that the windows and the balconies were thronged, and that the pearly beach was crowded with those who had come to see him sail put of the harbor of light into the ocean beyond. Out and out and out and on and on and on and down aiid down and down he sped, until one night, with only one to greet him, when he arrived, his disembarkation s ( o unpretending, so quiet, that it was not known on earth until the excitement in the cloud gave intimation Jo the Bethlehem rustics that something grnn<3 and giorlou's had happened. Who comes there? From what port did he sail? Why was this the place of his destination? question tlio shepherds. T question Tne raniel UrTvel'F. I question the angels. *1 have found out. He was an exile; But the world had plenty of exiles." Abraham, an exile from Haran; John, an exile from, Ephesus; Koseluako. an exile from Poland; Mazzini, an exile from Rome; Emmet, an exile from Ireland; Victor Hugo, an' exile from France; Kossuth, an exile from Hungary. But this one of whom I speak to-day had such resounding farewell and came into such chilling reception—for not even a hostler went out with his lantern to light him hi—that he is more to be celebrated than any other expatriated exile of earth or heaven. . . ,

- An Imperial Exile. First, I remark that Christ was an imperial exile. He got dowu.off a throne. He took off a tiara. He closed a palace gate behind him. His family were princes, and princesses. Vashti was turned out of the throneroom by Ahasuerus. David was dethroned by Absalom’s infamy. The five kings were hutled into a cavern by Joshua’s courage. Some of the Henrys of England and some of the Louis of France were jostled on their thrones by discon.tented subjects. But Christ was nevermore honored, or more popular, or more loved than the day he left heaven. Exiles have suffered severely, but Christ turned himself out from throneroom into sheep pen and down the top to the bottom. He was not pushed off. He was not manacled for foreign transportation. He was not put out .because they no more wanted him in celestial domain, but by choice departing and descending into an exile five times as long as that of Napoleon at St. Helena and 1,000 times worse; the one exile suffering for that he had destroyed nations, the other exile suffering because he came to save a world. An imperial exile. King eternal. “Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne.” But I go farther and tell you lie was an : exile on a barren island. This world is one of the smallest islands of light in the ocean of immensity. Other stellar kingdoms are many thousand times larger than this. Christ came to this small Patinos of a world. When exiles are sent out they are generally sent to regions that are sandy or cold or hot—some Dry Tortugas of disagreeableness. Christ came as an exile to a world scorched with heat and bitten with cold, to deserts simoon swept, to a howling wilderness. It was the back dooryard, seemingly, ot the universe. Yea, Christ came to the poorest part of this barren island of a world— Asia Minor, with its intense summers, unfit for the residence of a foreigner and in the rainy season unfit for the residence of a native. Christ eaftne not to such a land as America, or England, or France, or Germany, but to a land one-third of the year drowned, another third of the year burned np ahd only one-third of the year just tolerable. Oh! it was the barren island of a world. Barren enough for Christ, for it gave such jsmaJj,jF£>xahip and such* inadequate affection and such little gratitude. Imperial exile on the barren island of a world. In a Hostile Conntry. I go farther and tell you that he was an exile in a hostile country. Turkey was never so much against Russia, Franco was never so much against Germany, as this earth was against Christ. It took him in through the door of a stable. It thrust him out at the point of a spear. The Roman Government against him, with every weapon of its army, and every decision of its courts, and every beak of its war eagles. For years after his arrival the! only question was how best to put him out Herod hated him; the high priests hated him; the Pharisees hated him; Judas Iscariot hated him; Gestas, the dying thief hated him. The whole earth seemingly turned into a detective to watch his steps. And yet he faced this ferocity. Notice Jjnjt mos£ yf Christ’s wounds were in front Some scourging on (he shoulder, but mort of in front fie wasnot on fftreat when Jig fxpiretL £ase to face with the world’s sin. Face to face with the world’s woe. His eye on the raging countenances - of his foaming antagonists when he expired. When the cavalry officer roweled his steed so that he might come nearer up and see the tortured visage of the suffering exile, Christ saw it When the spear was thrust at his side, and when the hammer was lifted for his feet, and when the reed was raised to strike deeper down the spikes of thorn, Christ watched the whole procedure. When his hands were fastened to the cross, they were wide open still with benediction. Mind you, his head was not fattened. He could look to the right and he could look to the left and he could look np, and he could look down. . He saw when the spikes had been driven home, and the hard, round iron heads were in the palms of his hands. He saw themi as plainly as you ever saw anything in the palms of your hands. No ether, no chlo-

rofoym, no merciful anaesthetic to dull or "Stupefy; but; wide awake, he'Saw fee obscuration of the heavens, the unbalancing of the rocks, the countenances quivering with rage and the cachinnation diabolic. Oh, it was the hostile as well as the barren island of a world! I go farther and tell you that this exile was far from home. It is 95,000,000 miles, from here to the sun and all astronomers agree in saying that our solar system is only one at the smaller wheels of fee great machinery of the universe turning aronnd some <Jhe great center, the center so far distant it is beyond ail imagination and calculation, and, if, as some think, that great center in the distance is heaven, Christ came far from home when he came here. Have you ever thought of the homesickness of Christ? Some of you kpovy what homesickness is when you have been only a few weeks absent from the domestic circle. Christ was 83 years away from home. Some of you feel homesickness when you are 100 or 1,000 miles away from the domestic circle. Christ was more million miles away from home than you could count if all your life yon did nothing but count. You know what it is to be homesick even amid pleasant surroundings, but Christ slept in huts, and he was athirst, and he was a-hungered, and he was on the way from being born in another man’s barn to being buried in another man’s grave. I have read how the Swiss, when they are far away from their native country, at the sound of their national air get so homesick that they fall into melancholy and sometimes they die under the homesickness. But, oh, the homesickness of Christ. Poverty homesick for celestial riches. Persecution homesick for hosanna. Weariness homesick for rest. Homesick for angelic and archangelic companionship. Homesick to get out of the night and the storm and the world’s dxeeration. Homesickness will make 4.jyeej| gppm n g long as J month and it seems’ to methat ,the three decades of Christ’s residence on earth must have seemed to him almost i§t|ngipbie. You have often tried to measure the other pangs of Christ, but you have never tried to measure the magnitude and ponderosity of a Saviour’s homesickness.

I take a step farther and tell you that Christ was in an exile which he knew would end in_ assassination. Holman Stunt, the master painter, has a picture in ■which he represents Jesus Christ in the Nazarene carpenter shop. Around him are the saws, the hammers, the axes, the drills of carpentry. The picture represents Christ as rising from the carpenter’s working bench and wearily stretching out his arms as one will after being.in contracted or uncomfortable posture, and the light of that picture is so arranged that the arms of Christ, wearily stretched forth, Together with his body, throw on the wail the shadow of the cross. Oh, my friends, that shadow was on everything in Christ’s lifetime. Shadow of a cross on the Bethlehem swaddling clothes; shadow of a cross on the road over yyhich the three fugitives fled into Egypt; shadow of a cross on Lake Galilee as Christ walked its mosaic floor of opal and emerald and crystal; shadow of a cross on the road to Emmaus; shadow of a cross on the brook Kedron, and. on the temple, and on the side of Olivet; shadow of a cross on sunrise and sunset. Gonstantine, marching with his army, saw just once a cross in the sky, but Christ saw the cross all the time. The Doom of a Desperado," On a rough jouriey we cheer ourselves with the fact that it will end in warm hospitality, but Christ knew that his rough path would end at a defoliaged tree, without one leaf and with only two branches, bearing fruit of such bitterness as no human lips had ever tasted. Oh, what an exile, starting in an infancy without any cradle and ending in assassination! Thirst without any water, day without any sunlight. The doom of a desperado for more than angelip excellence. For what that expatriation and that exile? Worldly good sometimes comes from worldly evil. The accidental glance 'of a sharp blade from a razor grinder’s wheel put out the eye of Gambetta and excited sympathies which gained him an education and started him on a career that made his name more majestic among Frenchmen than any other name in the last twenty years. Hawthorne, turned out of the office of collector at Salem, went home in despair. His wife touched him on the shoulder and said, “Now is the time to write your book,” and his famous “Scarlet Letter” was the brilliant consequence. Worldly good sometimes comes from worldly evil. Then be not unbelieving when I tell yon that from the greatest crime of all eternity and of the whole universe, the murder of the Son of God, there shall come results which shall eclipse all the grandeurs of eternity past and eternity to come. Christ, an exile from heaven opening the way for the deportation toward heaven and to heaven of »&!! these who -accept Atonement, a ship large enough to take all the passengers that will come aboard it. A Land of Voluntary Exile, For this royal exile I bespeak the love and service of all the exiles here present, and, in one sense or the other, that includes all of us. The gates of this continent have been so widely opened that there are here many voluntary exiles from other lands. Some of you are Scotch? men. I see it in your high cheek bones and in the color that illumines your face when I mention the land of your nativity. Bonny Scotland! Dear old kirk! Some of your ancestors sleeping in Greyfriars churchyard, or by the deep lochs filled out of the pitchers of heaven, or under the heather, sometimes so deep of color it makes one think of the blood of the Cove«nanters -who —signed their names for Christ, dipping their pens into the veins of their own arms opened for that purpose. t How every fiber of your nature thrills as I mention the names of Robert Bruce and the Campbells and Cochrane. Jbespeak for Jhis royal exile of my text tie ioyg M.tigfem>’y£fiU Ssg<&&: lies. Some of you are Englishmen. Your ancestry served the Lord. Have I not read the sufferings of the Haymarket? And have I not seeta in Oxford the very spot where Ridley and Latimer mounted the red chariot? Some of your ancestors heard George Whitefield thunder, or heard Charles Wesley sing, or heard John Bunyaa tell his dream of the celestial city, and the cathedrals under the shadow of which some of you were born had in their grandest organ roll the name of the Messiah. I bespeak for the royal exile of my sermoaHie.l«T.e And iUe.jmiQe.fif all Eat lish exiles. Yes, some of you came from the island of distress over which hunger, on a throne of human skeletons, sat queen. All eff<sMs at amelioration halted by massacre. Procession of famines, procession of martyrdoms marching from northern channel to Cape Clear and from the Irish

aea acros* to fee n<*^ bounded as geographers tell ns, bat ad every philanthropist knows—bounded on the north and the south and the east and the west by woe which no hninan politics can alleviate and only Almighty God can assuage. , Land of Goldsmith’s rhythm, and Sheridan’s wit, and O’ConneU’s • quence, and Edmund Burke’s statesmanship, and O’Brien’s sacrifice. Another Patmos with its apocalypse of blood. Yet you cannot think of it to-day without having your eyes blinded with emotion, for there your ancestors sleep in graves, some of which they entered for lack of bread. For this royal exile of my sermon I bespeak the love and the service of all Irish exiles. Yes, some of you are from Germany, the land of Luther; and some of you are from Italy, the land of Garibaldi, and some of you are from France, the land of John Calvin, one of the three mighties of the glorious reformation. Some of you are descendants of the Puritans, and they were exiles, and some of you are descendants of the Huguenots* and they were exiles, and some of you are descendants of the Holland refugees, and they were exiles. Heaven the Exile's Home. Some of you were born on the basks of the Yazoo or the Savannah, and you are now living in this latitude; some of you on the banks of the Kennebec or at the foot of the Green mountains, and you are here now; some of you on the prairies of the West or the tablelands, and, you are here now. Oh, how many of us far away from home! All of us exiles. This is not our home. Heaven is our home. Oh, I am so glad when the royal exile went back he left the gate ajar of left it wide open. “Going home!” That is the dying exclamation of the majority of Christians. I have seen many Christians die. I think nine out of ten of them in the last moment say, “Going home,” Going home out QjS jjamshgispf mid gm apd sprrQw~ana sadfiels. Going homq to join In the hilarities of our parents and our dear children who have already departed. Going home to Christ. Going home to God. Going homo to stay. Where are your loved ones that died in Christ? You pity them. Ah, they ought to pity you ! You are an exile far from home. They are ho&e! Oh, what a time it will be for you when the gatekeeper of heaven shall say: “Take off that rough sandal. The journey’s ended. Put down that saber. The battle’s won. Put off that iron coat of mail and put on the robe of conqueror.” At that gate of triumph I leave you to-day, only reading three tender cantos translated from the Italian. If you, ever heard anything sweeter, I never did, although I canndj adopt all its theology: ’Twas whispered one morning in heaven How the little child angel May, In the shade of the great while portal, / Sat sorrowing night and day; How she said to the stately warden, He of the key and bar: “Oh, angel, sweet angel, I pray you Set the beautiful gates ajar, Only a little, I pray you, Set the beautiful gates ajar. “I can hear my mother weeping. ' She is lonely; she cannot see A glimmer of light in the darkness When the gates shut after me. Oh, turn me the key, sweet angel, The splendor will shine so far.” But the warden answered, “I dare not Set the beautiful gates ajar,” Spoke low and answered, “I dare not Set the beautiful" gates ajar.” Then up rose Mary, the blessed, Sweet Mary, the mother of Christ, Her hand on the hand of the angel She laid, and her touch sufficed. Turned was the key in the portal, Fell ringing the golden bar, And, 10, in the little child’s fingers Stood the beautiful gates ajar, In the little child’s angel fingers , Blood the beautiful gates ajar.