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6
WE INEANT’S ESCAPE
DR. TALMACHE NAMES THE DANGERS
THAT BESET THE 'HOLY BABE.
Vfor4*r*« Fr»A4« Had Vo Rockrr»-~Ti»
<h«rnrter <i* Hrr«>6-Ji.nt One lrre»
jkroachflble A; »i »»—V\ tint ('forint i««rttjr
>!»« Done Fee- the M«rrld.
(■Copyright. -y Amwicsn Press Asao*-
cjation.l
Wam JX<W.la-c. 25.—1 -a most un
usual ray a connect*! with the na
tivity is einphntustd by Dr. Talmage in
thia Christmas .discourw- -text, Matthew
ii. 13, "Herod wi.l seek the young child
to destroy him. ” The cradle of the in
fant J«-v is had nr rockers, f- r it was wot
to be soothed by e*fillf.ti»g motion, as are
the crad’es of -other princes. It had no
canopy, .'or it whs not to fee hovered over
by anything so exquisite. It had no em
broidered pillow, for the young head was
not to nave *uoh luxariofos comfort.
Though, n meuw/r^-Ordinarily the most
•erratic an 1 seemingly ungovernable of ail
skyey appearance*—ehad been wait to desig
nate the place wfoorr that Ctadlesstood and (
.a oiioir had been eerrt; from the » heavenly
temple to-aerenade its il!ustriou«<<cciipant
with an epi 3, yet that cradle was the tar- >
.get for all. earthly aim! diabolical hostili- i
hiee. Indeed I give sou m ntyopinion :
that itr Was the narrowest and oKMt won
•derful. escape of the ages that the child
•was not slaia before be*had taken ilv-i first
etepror.spoken his-first word. Herochcould
"not afford tofijave him born. TheCwsars
«>uld not affwd to have him born. The
gigantic,oppressions,and abominatfam of
tine world.could not afford to have him t
born. Was.these ever planned a more sys- <
teirfatized or appalling torn bard ment i<i j
•’"al! ihu world than the bombardment <af
I ’Th <•/»£>?
The Herod wtino led the attack vat ,
treachery, .vengeMiee and sensuality Imp ■
|H-i*or.>aiwd. pastime he slew .
, Hyrcanu*< tfthe grandfather of his wife. 1
•i Then he skew Mariamne, his wife. Then ,
“> he butchered Ler tw»u-sons, Alexander and
’ Aristobulus. Then lie slew Antipater,
his oldest son. Tlu» he ordeiwd burned
aljve 40 people who had pulled down the I
eagle of his authority, lie ordered the !
nobles who had attenefod upon fits dying
.bed tb he slain, so thait there might be ’
.universal mourning after his decease. ’
From that same deathlued he ordered the
■slaughter of all the children in Bethlehem
Under 2 years of age, feeling sure that if
he massacred the entire infantile jiopnla
t.io® that would include the destruction of
the child whose birthplace astronomy had
<A«inted out with its finger of light. What
were the slaughtered babes to him, and as
many frenzied and l>ereft mothers? If he
had been well enough to leave his bed, he
would have enjoyed seeing the mothers
wildly struggling to keep their halves, and
holding them so tightly that they could
not be separated until the sword took both
Jives at one stroke, and others, mother
and child, hurled from roofs of houses into
the street until that village of horseshoe
shape on the hillside became one great
butcher shop. To have such a man, with
associates just as cruel, and an army at
his command, attempting the life of the
infant Jesus, does there seem any chance
for his escape? 'Then that flight south
ward for bo many miles, across deserts
and amid bandits and wild beasts (my
friend, the late missionary and scientist
Dr. Lansing, who took the same journey,
said it was enough to kill both the Ma
donna and the Child), and poor residence
in Cairo. Egypt. You know how difficult
it is to take an ordinary child successful
ly through the disorders that are sure to
assail it even in comfortable homes and
.with alldelicat* ministries, and then think
of the exposure of that famous babe in
villages and lands where all sanitary laws
were put at defiance, his first hours on
earth spent in a room without any doors,
and oft times swept by chilled night
w inds; then afterward riding many days
under hot tropical sun, and part of many
nights, lest, the avenger overtake the fugi
tive before he could be hidden in another
land!
/■ The Babyhood of Christ.
The sanhedrin also were affronted at .
the report of this mysterious arrival of a !
child that might upset all conventionali
ties and threaten the throne of the nation.
“Srhut the door and bolt it and double bar
it against hihi,” cried al! political and
ecclesiastical power. Christ on a retreat
when only a few days of age, with all the
privations and hardships and sufferings
of retreat! When the glad news came that
Herod was dead, and the Madonna was
packing up and taking her Child home,
lad news also came, that Archelaus, the
son, had taken the throne—another crown- J
ed infamy. What chance lor the babe’s
life? Will not some short grave hold the
wondrous infant?”
“ Put him to death !” was the order all up
and down Palestine, and all up and down
the desert between Bethlehem and Cairo, j
The cry was: ‘.‘Here comes an iconoclast 1
of all established order! Here comes an
aspirant for the crown of Augustus! If
found on the streets of Bethlehem, dash ’
him to death on the pavement! If found j
on a hill, hurl him down the rocks! Away '
with him!' 1 But the Babe got home in
safety and passed up from infancy to i
youth and from youth to manhood and :
from carpenter shop to Megsiahship and
Irorn Messiahship to enthronement, until
the mightiest name on earth is Jesus, and
there is no mightier name in heaven.
What I want to call your attention to is
your narrow escape and mine and the
world’s narrow escape. Suppose that at
tempt on the young child’s life had been
successful! Suppose that delegation of j
wise men, who were to report to Herod
immediately after they discovered the
hard bed in the Bethlehem caravansary,
had obeyed orders and reported! Suppose
the beast carrying the Madonna and the
Child in the flight had stumbled and
flung to death its riders! Suppose Arche
laue had got his hands on the babe that
hie father had failed to find! Suppose
that among the children dashed from the
Bethlehem house tops or separated by
sword of the enraged constabulary Jesus
bad perished!
The Be««ty of (hrl»taia».
Then, to begin on the outermost rim of
my subject. Christmas festivities would
never have been observed, Christmas car
ols never sung, Christmas gifts never be
stowed, Christmas games never played,
Christmas bells never rung. What an aw
ful subtraction from the world s bright
ness would have been the making of
Dee. 25 like other days of the year!
Glorious day! After brightening England
and Holland and Germany for centuries
it stepped across the sea and pronounced
its benediction on our shores. Why, we
never get over our childhood Christmases!
Father and mother joined in them. They
forgot their rheumatisms and shortness of
brea’h. and for awhile threw ell the sor
rows of a lifetime w hile they struggled
with us as to who should first in the morn
ting shout the “-Merry Christmas!” Then
1 these were all the innocent allurements as
to vri»o brought tthe presents, and thewvon
derm -nt as to b*rw slei g*s drawn by rein- s
deer-omld come down the perpendicular,
and .afterward the disappointment as- Rome '•
; Older brother or sister, with all the.pride :
of dissovery, tried to persuade us that the ,
chinwiey had not •been the channel of gen- j
erous descent. e €Hi, what times they were, ;
I the <’hristmases of our boyhood and girl- ;
1 hood'days! We still feel in our pulses j
some-of the exuberance which wo then nn- '
wittingly stored up fir- future rimes, when
; the eye might lose sc-vne of its luster and •
I the foot s6n.e of its spring and the heart
some of its rebound. How holly and rose- j
■ mary and ivy and mi«rletoe looked inter- *|
t woven ! The Puritan* may not have liked j
; the day, ami John Calvin may have pro- ;
nouncad it superstitious and feared it |
would rtzring into religious observance the
saturnalia of the heathen, the decorations I
• of ivy inappropriate bAcause ivy had been ,
dedicahsd to Bacchus and mistletoe inap- |
propriate lx-cause mistletoe had been as- :
sociatod w’ith Druidical writes, but we teßi- '
j fy that Christmas never did us any harm, j
! and the only objection <we ever expressed I
was that it was so inng a time from i
Christmas to Christmas. Ecclesiastical i
; .eoDtrovergv as to whether it ought to be
<celebrated<o the 6th of or 29th
( x»f March.:ur 29th of September, or 25th of
Decern her .did not bother us then any
t r»ore than it lathers us now. It always
-eame at tbn right time, although a little
j .Ute, and now we realize ’that Christmas
1 exines opportunely, just after the shortest
j day of thejpear, Dec. 21, and at.the time
when days aae lengthening and the sun is
. roeommeiicinx its upward oourse, telling
us that sprii>>-and summer are coming.
! Ofa, what a forest of Christmas trees —
tree* bearing manner of fruits—now |
standing throughout the households of
Christendom! b»h, what are as
cending on thisiday, the Chrfotmns of a
i Saviour’s birth, ibhis year bletaling with
• the -rTihljatb of a Saviour’s resurrection 1
’ Do yoii not feel tin? thrill, the glow, the
enlaxtfpment, the trS.’jmph of thi«4ay and
! will .not y<,ur charities go forth unhil you
j sympathize with the quaint old (’hristmas I
• caroU—so okbl do iMtJknow who wiate it
j —its tilde, “Scatter Ywir Crumbs:”
Mid-it Die freezing sleet and snow
The<imid robin comes.
In pity, drive .him not away,
But ,*»uatter out your es-umbs
And le<*re your door upon the latch
For wjxjsoever comes.
Tlw poouer they, more welcome give ]
And out your crumbs.
All have -to spare, none are too poor,
When with winter comes,
And life is aiever all your own.
Then «»tier out the crumbs.
Scon winter falls upon your life,
The day of (reckoning comes;
Against your ejns, by high decree,
Are weighed those scattered crumbs.
Can the angel which St. John saw with
measuring rod measuring heaven or hath
any seraphic intelligence faculty enough
to calculate the magnificent effect which
1,898 Christmas mornings and 1,898
Christmas noons and 1,898 Christmas
nights have had on our poor old planet?
Let us thank God that we live to see this
Christmas, the bells of which ring out so
clear, so inspiring, so jubilant—bells of
family reunion, bells of church jubilee,
bells of national victory. But had either
Melchior or Balthasar orCaspar, the three j
wise men of the east, who had put down •
the sacks of aromatic frankincense or bags '
of chinking gold by the bare feet of the J
infant Lord, reported to Herod’s palace !
the place where they found the child the J
swift horses of executioners would have
carried death to that babe cradled in
Mary’s arm, and the Bethlehem star
would have been a star of tragedy, and
instead of a song of nativity, which the
nations are now chanting, this day would
be chiefly memorable for the shriek of be
reft motherhood.
The One Pure Man.
Still further remarking upon the nar
row escape which you and I had and all
the world had in that babe’s escape, let
me say that had that Ilerodic plot been
successful the one instance of absolutely
perfect character would nev6r have been
unfolded. The world had enjoyed the '
lives of many splendid men before Christ I
came. It had admired its Plato among ’
philosophers, its Mithridates among he
roes, its Herodotus among historians, its
Phidias among sculptors, its Homer |
kmong poets, its 2Esop among fabulists,
its J’Jsehylus among dramatists, its De
mosthenes among orators, its JEsculapius
among physicians, yet among the contem
poraries of those men there were two opin
ions, as now there are two opinions con
cerning every remarkable man. There
were plenty in those days who said of
them, ‘‘He cannot speak,” or “He cannot
sing.” or ‘‘He cannot philosophize,” or ;
‘‘His military achievement was a mere ac- j
cident.” or ‘‘His chisel, his pen, his med- I
ical prescription, never deserved the ap- i
plause given.” But .concerning this full
grown Christ, whose life was launched i
three decades before that first Christmas, ,
the moan of camels and the bleat of sheep i
and the low’ of cattle mingled with the i
, babe’s first cry, while clouds that night I
I were resonant with music, and star point- '
ing down whispered to star, ‘‘Look, there
, he is!” • '
That. Christ, after the detectives of Herod
i and Pilate and sanhedrin had watched i
him by day and watched him by night ■
, year after year, was reported innocent. It |
was found out that when ho talked to the *
vagrant woman in the temple it was to ;
tell her to‘‘Go and sin no more,’’and that !
if he spoke with the penitent thief it was
to promise him paradise within 24 hours,
and that as he moved about he dropped
ease of pain upon the invalid’s pillow, or
light upon the eye that ls>cked optic nerve,
or put bread into the hands of the hun-
j gry, or took from the oriental hearse the
dead young man and vitalized him and
said to the widowed mother, “Here he is,
alive and well!” and she cried, ‘‘My boy,
my boy!” and he responded, “Mother,
mother!” And the sea, tossing too roughly i
some of his friends,, by a word easier than
a nurse’s word to a petulant child, he }
made it keep still. The very judge who
for other reasons allowed him to be put to
death declared, “I find no fault in him!” j
Was there ever a life so thoroughly ran
sacked and hypercriticised that turned
out to be so perfect a life? Now, can you '
imagine what would have been the calam
ity to earth and heaven, what a bereave-
I ment to all history, what swindling not
! only of the human race, but of cherubim
and seraphim and archangel, if because of
infernal incursion upon the bed of that .
Bethlehem babe this life of divine and ‘
glorious manhood had never been lived?
The Christie-parables would never have
I been uttered, the sermon on tbe mount,
all adrip with benedictions, never preach
ed. the golden rule, in picture frame of j
everlasting love, would never have been
hung up for the universe to gaze upon and
: admire.
Can you imagine what a scarification
of the world's literature would be the re
moval of all Christ ever did and said? It
would tear down the most important
shelves of yonder congressional library,
and of the Vatican library, and of British
museum, and Berlin and Bonn and Vien-
MACON NEWS TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 27 xSgb.
na and Madrid and St. Petersburg libra- i
ries, and St Paul’s life would have been 1
an impossibility, and his epistles would
1 n»ver have been written, and St. John, ■
from rhe basalticcavernsof Patmos, would
never have heard the seven trumpets or
' seen the heavenly walls with 12 layers of i
■ illumined crystallization. Oh. wise men I
1 of the east. I am so glad you did not re- '
> port to the imperial scoundrel at JArus- ‘
; aiem where the babe was. for the hounds
would have soon torn to pieces the Lamb,
, and I am so glad that not only did you
1 bring the frank incense and the myrrh to j
the room in that caravansary, but that
! you brought the gold which paid his trav- i
1 eling expenses and those of Joseph and
I Mary in that long and dangerous flight to
■ Cairo, in Egypt, and paid their lodging
and hoard th* r ? and paid their wr.y liack
| again! Weli <-;mugh to bring to the barn
of the Saviour s nativity the flowers, for
i they aromatized the dreadful atmosphere
of the stables, hut the gold was just then
j the most important efifering. So now the ,
j Lord accepts your prayers, for they are the
perfume of heaven, but fee asks also for
the gold which will pay the expense of
taking Christ to all nations.
A Grave?«rd Pence.
Still further remarking upon the nar
row escape which you and I and the world
had in the diversion of the jx-i-secutors
from the place of nativity, let me say that
h/id that Herodic raid upon the swaddling
clothes been successful the world would 1
never.have known the value of a right
eous peace. Much has been made of the j
fact that the work! was at peace when |
Christ came. Yes. But what kind of a
peace was it? It was a peace worse than
war. It was the peace of a graveyard.
I The .Roman eagles had plucked out the
Wahl’s eyesight and plunged their beaks
through the heart of dead nations. It W’as ;
a peace like that spoken cf by a dying In
dia:) chieftain when a Christian home mis
sionary said to him, “You have been a
warrior.and I suppose, have been in many
f< uds, shut you must be at peace with all
your enemies in order to die aright. ” The
dying chieftain replied 1 : ”Thkt’s easy
enough. lam at peace with all my ene
mies, for 1 have killed all of them.”
That wits the style of peace on earth
when Christ came, but the spirit of arbi- .
tratiou, which is to garland the comb of I
this century and coronet, the brow of the '
coining century, is consequent upon the I
midnight anthem above Bethlehem, two
bars to that music, the first of divine
ascription, and the second of earthly paci
fication. “Glory to God and peace to
men.” In his manhood Christ pronounced
t he same doctrine—“ Blessed are the merci
lul.” Before the Bethlehem star flashed
its significance the theory was, “Blessed
is wholesale cutthrcatery. Blessed are
those who can kill the most antagonists.
Blessed are these who can most skillfully
wield the battleax. Blessed are those w’ho
can stab the deepest with spear or roll a
chariot wheel over the most wounded or
put his charger’s hoof on the most dead.”
The entirely new theory of our Christ was
blessing for cursing, prayer for those who
despitefully use you, foundries to turn
spears into pruning hooks, redhot fur
naces to melt swords into molds shaped
like plowshares. If gigantic acerbities
and worldwide tigerisms had, without any
gospel opposition, gone on until now and
been augmented by 1,898 years of ferocity,
by this time what would this world have,
been turned into? You need not remind
me of the awful wars since the opening of
the year 1 of our Christian era, for if
the earth has been again and again lacer
ated into an Aceldama through improved
weaponry of deat*h and more rapidity of
fire, PriisEian breechloader, which in 1866
startled the nations u ith unprecedented
havoc, eclipsed by contrivances that can
sweep vaster numbers to death by one
volley, and telegraphy adding to gunnery
new facilities for slaughter by instantly
ordering armies to where they can do the
most, wholesale murder—l say if all this
wee has been wrought, how much worse
would it have been if the Christly revela- •
tion had not been let down from heaven !
on five runged ladder of musical scale,
and there had been no preaching of good
will ail up and down Christendom for 19
centuries! The Bethlehem manger has
given the most potent suggestion of peace ■
the world has ever received. The cavalry 1
horses cannot eat out of tiiat manger.
The Fence of Christ.
I take another step forward in showing
the narrow escape you and I hatl and the ‘
world hatl in the secretion of Christ’s
birthplace from the Herodic detectives and
the clubs with which they would have
dashed the babe’s life out when I say that
without the life that began that, night in
Bethlehem the world would have had no
illumined deathbeds. Before the time of
Christ good people closed their earthly
lives in peace while depending upon the
Christ to come, and there were antedilu
vian saints, and Assyrian saints, and
Egyptian saints, and Grecian saints, and
Jerusalem saints long before the clouds
above Bethelehem became a balcony filled j
with the best singers of a world where 1
they all sing, but I cannot read that there !
w.as anything more than a quieting guess •
that came to those before Christ deathbeds.
Jo!) said something bordering on rhe con- !
fident, but it was mixed up with a story i
of “skin worms” that would destroy his j
body. ’ Abraham and Jacob .bad a little j
lighten the dying pillow, but, compared !
with the after Christ deathbeds, it was ;
like the dim tallow candle of old beside
the modern cluster of lights electric. I j
know Elijah went up in memorable man- j
ner, but it was a terrible way to -go—a I
whirlwind of fire that must have been i
splendid to look at by those who stood on
Che banks of the Jordan, but itAvas a style
of ascent that required more nerve than
you and I ever had, to be a placid occu
pant of a chariot drawn by such a wild
team. The triumphant deathbeds, as far
as I know, were the after Christ death
beds. What a procession of hosannas have I
marched through the dying room of the
saints of the last 19 centuries! What cav
alcade of mounted halleluiahs has gallop-
1 ed through the dying visions of the last
I 2,000 years save 100! Peaceful deathbeds
in thayears B. C. 1 Triumphant (death
beds, for tbe most part, reserved for the
years A. D.! Behold tbe deathbeds of
tbe Wesleys, of the Doddridges, of the
Legh Richmonds, of the Edward Paysons,
• of Vara, the converted heathen chieftain,
cryingin his last moments: “The canoe is
in the sea. The sails are spread. She is
ready for the gale. I have a good pilot, to
guide me. My outside man and my inside
man differ. Let the one rot till the trum
pet shall sound, but let my soul wing
| her way to the throne of Jesus.” Os dy
ing John Fletcher, who entered his pulpit
tn preach, though his doctors forbade him,
and then descended to the communion ta
ble. saying, “1 am going to throw myself
, under the wings of the cherubim before
the mercy seat.” thousands of people a
few days after following him to the grave,
singing:
With heavenly weapons he has fought
The battles of the Lord,
Finished his course and kept the faith
And gained the great reward.
Os pastor Emille Cook, the great French
evangelist, who sat in my church ’in
i Brooklyn one Sunday mornin2 and in
-a few days shipwrecked and dying after
his wife had said ro him. “God will help
you. jdv dear; he will srive you peace/’
replying, “But I have it—peace, I have
it!”' (.)f Prince Albert, quoting with his
last breath, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
:k< me hide myself in thee! Os the dy-
I ing soldier who had been shot through the
mouth and could not talk, and when the
* chaplain .approached him motioned for
i pencil and paper and wrote: lam a
Christian, prepared to die. Rally round
the flag! Rally round the flag!’’ Os John
Brown of Haddinoton. who said: “I de
sire to depart and be with Choist, and,
though I have lived €0 years very com
fortably in this world, I would turn my
back upon you all to be with Christ.
There is no one like Christ—no one like
Christi. I have been looking at him these
many years and never yet could find any
fault in him but was of my own making,
though he has seen 10,000 faults in me.
Oh, what must ho be in himself when it
is hethat sweetens heaven, sweetens Scrip
ture, sweetens ordinances, sweetens earth,
sweetens trial.” Os .John Janeway, say
ing in his hist moments: ‘"I have done
with prayer and all other ordinances. Be
fore a few hours are over I shall be in
eternity singing the song of Moses and
I the Lamb. I shall presently stand on
| Mount Zion with an innumerable com
j pany of angels and with spirits of just
men made perfect and with Jesus, the
mediator of the new covenant. Halle
luiah!” Some one ought to preach a
course of sermons on triumphant Chris-
I tian deathbeds, and then let some one
' preach a sermon on triumphant infidel
deathbeds—that is, if he can hear or read
of one of this latter kind. I never heard
of one. Do tell us of one. There never
was one. And had the babe of Bethlehem
. died the same week in which he was born
there never would have been a triumphant
Christian deathbed. It is the wonderful
story of Christ, now rapidly filling the
earth, that makes triumphant Christian
deathbeds. The Bethlehem star had to
give way before the rising sun which was
to become the noonday Sun of Righteous
ness.
Tl»e Necessity of Christ.
Are you ready now for a thought that
I overtowers all other thoughts in impor
i tance and grandeur? Pray that you may
be ready. It- as far exceeds anything 1
have said as all the gold mines of Califor
nia, developed and undeveloped, exceed
the thimbleful of gold dust which in 1848
a California miner brought from a mill
race and put upon the desk of a surprised
capitalist. In remarking upon the narrow
escape which you and I and the world
made let me say that had the Herodic raid
on that room of the Bethlehem khan been
a successful raid or had some cold taken by
the child in that flight toward Cairo been
fatal heaven would have been to us an
eternal impossibility. With our fallen na
ture unchanged, unregenerated, unrecon
structed through Jesus Christ, the human
race would be no more fit for heaven than
a noisome weed is fit for a queen’s gar
land, no more than a shattered bass viol
is fit to sound in a Dusseldorf musical ju
bilee. If at one time Garibaldi seemed to
hold in his right hand the freedom of
Italy, and Washington seemed at one time
to hold in his right hand American inde
pendence, and Martin Luther seemed to
hold in his right hand the emancipation
of the church of God for all nations, so in
grander and better sense the infant born
in that Bethlehem stall held in one hand
the ransom of earth and in the other the
rapture of heaven. He started that night
for three places which he must reach, or
we never could reach heaven, Gethsemane
and, Calvary and Olivet, the first for ago
nizing prayer, the second for excruciating
suffering, the third for glorious ascension
as the law of gravitation relaxed for once
to let him up out of his exile. Had his
life been only one day or one year of dura
tion instead of 33 years, had be died in
Bethlehem or in Cairo or in the desert be
tween, not a church would ever have been
’ built, not a hospital ever opened, not a
nation ever freed, not a civilization ever
inaugurated, not a soul saved. Oh, what
a crisis that was in the world’s history!
What a crisis in the eternities! I think
that the angels who composed the choir
for the Christmas cantata above Bethle
hem were not ths only angels around that
night. I think there were some who in
stead of holding librettos of celestial mu
sic stood all up and down the steeps of
, heaven with drawn swords, keen and two
edged. That cradle must be defended.
That flight into Egypt must be hovered
over by winged cohort. That humble
stopping place in Cairo must be watched
by celestial bands descending amid the
Egyptian pyramids and the sphinx which
had already stood there for ages celebrat
ing kings, none of whom ever had such
glory as will be won by that Prince sleep
ing in his mother’s arms under their long
shadows. Hear it all, ye people—in that
babe’s survival our heaven was involved.
And shall we not add to our usual Christ
mas congratulation at a Saviour’s birth
the joy at the babe’s rescue?
A Time For Joy.
Now let the Christmas table be spread.
Let it be an extension table made up of
[ the tables of your households, and added
: to them the tables of celestial festivity,
all together making a table long enough,
to reach across a hemisphere—yea, long
; enough to roach from earth to heaven.
J Send out the invitations to all the guests
whom we would like to have come and
: dine. Come all the ransomed of earth and
all the crowned of heaven As at ancient
; banquets the king who was to preside
; came in after all the guests had taken
their places at rhe table, so j erhaps it may
be now. Let the old folks who sat at
either end of your Christmas table 10 or
20 or 40 years ago be seated, their aches
and pains all gone. Behold they sit down
in the exhilaration of everlasting youth!
Come brothers and sisters who used to re
: tire with us early on Christmas eve so
that the mysteries of bestowed gifts
might be kept secret and who rose with
us early on Christmas morn to see what
was to be revealed. Come all the old
neighbors of our boyhood and girlhood
days who used to happen in toward the
close of this day to wish us a merry time
1 Come all the ministers of Christ who have
; in pulpits for many a year been telling
j the story of the star that pointed to the
world's first Christmas gift and at the
same time wakened Herod’s apprehen
sions. Come and sit down ye heralds of
i “the glad tidings,” whether you were
i sprinkled or plunged, whether your thanks
today be offered in liturgy of ages or
prayers spontaneous, whether you be
gowned in canonicals or wearing plain
coat of backwoods meeting house. Come
I in! Room at this Christmas table for ail
those who have bowed at the manger in
whatever world you now live:
Part of the host have crossed the flood,
And part are crossing now.
Yea. come and sit at this Christmas ta
ble, all heaven. Archangel at that end of
the table, and all rhe angels under him
adjoining. Comedown! Come in! And
| take your pla- es at this Christmas ban
! quet. The tai te is spread, and the King
who will preside is about to enter. He
tomes —him of Bethieheig. him of Cal-
. . The . .
EMPIRE
and
ice co:
A Qift
W From Santa Claus
ktuA v®SSS -■ '9 The lar £ est stock of pianos and organs,
L- imrl guitars,, mandolins, banjos, etc., ever
»■ C brought to this city. Celebrated makes of
pianos; celebrated makes of organs, all
JT sold at lowest prices and easy terms.
Sole agents for the Yost typewriter.
fl - Gut-tenfierger & Co.
452 Second Street.
vary, him of Olivet, him of the throne! I
Rise and greet him. Fill all your chalices ;
with the wine pressed from the heavenly
Eschol and drink at this Christmas ban
quet to the memory of the babe’s rescue i
from Herodic pursuit, and the memory of ;
those astronomers of the east who defeated
the malide and sarcasm and irony and in- ,
i fernal stratagem of the monster’s mani-
I festo, “Go and search diligently for the !
! young child, and when ye have found
! him, bring me word again, that I may
I come and worship him also.” “Given at
! the palace. Herod the Great.”
A TEXAS WONDER.
!
Hall’s Great Discovery.
One small bottle of Hall’s Great Dis
covery cures all kidney and bladder trou
bles, removes gravel, cures dlebetis. semi
nal emisisons, weak and lame backs, rheu
matism and aii irregularities of the kid
neys and bladder in both men and women. j
Regulates bladder troubles in children. If
not sold by your druggist will be sent by
mail on receipt of JI. One small bottle is
two months' treatment and will cure any
case above mentioned.
E. W. HALL,
Sole Manufacturer.
P. O. Box 211, Waco, Texas.
Sold by H. J. Lamar <fc Son, Macon, Ga.
READ THIS.
Covington, Ga., July 23, IS9B.
This is to certify that I have used Dr.
Hall’s Wonderful Discovery for Rheuma
tism, Kiddney and Bladder Troubles. and
will say it is far superior to any thing 1
have ever used for the above complaints.
Very respectfully,
H. I. HOR^ V ’’’x-Marshal.
•
Pains in the chest when a person has
a cold indicate a tendency toward pneu
monia. A piece of flannel dampened with
Chamberlain’s Pain Balm and bound on
to the chest over the seat of pain will
promptly relieve the pain and prevent
the threatened attack of pneumonia. This .
same treatment will cure a lame back in
a few nours. Sold by H. J. Lamar &
Sons.
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j
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THE
STAR *
IN THE
-X- EAST
■.1898..
YEARS AGO
Led the wise men of
the county to a
great
REVELATION:
THE
Star
Clothing
Co.
OF THE
SOUTH
Will show the wise
men and women of
this section where
they will find great
er array of useful
presents for the co
memoration of the
event 1898 year ago
than elsewhere.
Star
Clothing
Co.
Dave Wachtel, Mgr.