The world's great sermons, Volume 08 - Talmage to Knox Little by Unknown
page 44 of 171 (25%)
page 44 of 171 (25%)
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then,--for he was human like the rest of us! But mark you this, my
brothers, for, in an age which, under one figment or another, whether of more ancient or more modern license, is an age of much self-will,--we shall do well to remember it,--his was a life of orderly and consistent obedience to rule. He kept to the Church's plain and stately ways: kept to them and prized them too. But all the while he held his soul wide open to the vision of his Lord! Up out of a routine that seemed to others that did not know or could not understand him, and who vouchsafed to him much condescending compassion for a bondage which he never felt, and of which in vain they strove to persuade him to complain,--up out of the narrower round in which so faithfully he walked, from time to time he climbed, and came back bathed in a heavenly light, with lips aglow with heavenly fire. The Spirit had spoken to him, and so he spoke to us. "The flesh profiteth nothing: it is the spirit that quickeneth. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." And so we thank God not alone for his message, but that it was given to him to speak it as a bishop in the Church of God. We thank God that in a generation that so greatly needs to cry, as our _Te Deum_ teaches us, "Govern us and lift us up!" he was given to the Church not alone to rule but to uplift. What bishop is there who may not wisely seek to be like him by drawing forever on those fires of the Holy Ghost that set his lips aflame? Nay, what soul among us all is there that may not wisely seek to ascend up into that upper realm in which he walked, and by whose mighty airs his soul was filled? Unto the almighty and ever-living God we yield most high praise and hearty thanks for the wonderful grace |
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