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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. News and Opinions OF National Importance. THE SUN ALONE’ Contains Both. j Daily, by mail $6 a year D’ly and Sunday,by mail..sß a year The Sunday Sun •Is the greatest Sunday Newspaper in the world. . i Price 5c a copy. By mail $2 a year Addrcm THTB SUN. N«w Vark. Latest Style Type, Attractive Designs, Original Ideas, i I We invite you to call and see us when you want up-to-date printing of all kinds. We make a specialty of high grade commercial printing. Everything in our office is the latest ard the best. News Printing co, . 412-414 Cherry Street. Telephone 2C5. [ 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.