15 Sermon Illustrations on Church History

Only by happy coincidence did the names of the true authors of the song "Silent Night" come to light-thirty-six years after they wrote it. The story begins in 1818 in a church in the little Austrian town of Oberndorf. Shortly before Christmas Eve, a mouse ate a hole in the leather bellows of the church organ, effectively silencing it. The itinerant organ mender was not due in town for months, and music was needed for the Christmas Eve service. In three and one-half hours, Franz Gruber, the organist, composed music for a poem written by Josef Mohr, a priest. It began "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht" ("Silent Night, Holy Night"). On Christmas Eve, the two men sang their composition accompanied by a guitar and children's chorus. They were a great success. The following May, when the organ mender turned up, Gruber gave him a copy of the song, which the man then circulated in his travels. By 1831, thirteen years later, the Strasser family quartet was billing "Silent Night" one of their numbers, as a Tyrolean folk song by "authors unknown." Time went by, and soon the now-popular song was being attributed to several famous composers. In 1854, the leader of the king's orchestra in Berlin wrote to the choir director of the Benedictine school in Salzburg, asking for a copy of "Silent Night" by Michael Haydn, brother of the more famous composer Franz Joseph Haydn. The choir director asked a student-who just happened to be Felix Gruber, Franz Gruber's son-to find a copy. And you can guess the rest. A Strange Birthday Celebration If the following story were not true, it would surely be unbelievable. It is true, however, as you yourself will agree when you have read it. There was once a great king. His love for his people knew no limits. Although the kingdom was very large, the king knew every person by name. Everything the people of the kingdom had was a gift freely given by the loving king. So, to show their love and appreciation to the king for all he had done for them, the people decided to have a great celebration to honor his birthday. Everyone agreed it was a marvelous idea. Preparations for the celebration were very elaborate. No expense was spared by the people. They adorned their homes with lights, decorations, and expensive ornaments. There were parties, dinners, and celebrations throughout the kingdom. All the people brought gifts for their friends and family. Many of the gifts which the people gave each other were quite expensive, involving considerable indebtedness. In fact, the people spent more on the birthday celebration than they spent at any other time of the year. Many who were not citizens of the kingdom, and who did not even know the king, joined in the celebration. Their celebration of the king's birth was marked by excessive drinking. Since they did not know the king, they invented a good-natured, fat fellow in a red suit. He laughed a lot, but never said anything. But that didn't matter because they were too busy celebrating to listen anyhow. The great day of celebrating his birth finally arrived, and some of his people did come bringing gifts and thanking him for his goodness to them. But to his dismay, most of the citizens never came to his house at all on the day of celebration. And the gifts brought to the king by those few who came were very meager when compared with the gifts they had given themselves. For the most part the people said they had been so busy with all the celebrations and personal plans that they had forgotten about the king. Several said they had thought of him, but really could not work it into their schedules or budgets to come see him or bring a gift. A few were known to be quite put out when it was suggested that going to the king's house or remembering him with a gift was important. Those people who did come to his house and who brought their loving gifts were welcomed and blessed by the king. But when they had gone and he was alone again, the king fell to thinking of the vast numbers of his people who had forgotten and forsaken him. How could they have forgotten? Had he not loved them all? How could so many of his beloved people who had found the time and money for shopping and feasting and partying and decorating and all sorts of celebrations-how could they possibly be so thoughtless, so ungrateful or selfish? Did they not know that he, too, had feelings? Was not the purpose of the birthday celebration originally planned to honor him? When the king was alone, pondering these questions, he felt the tears well up in his eyes. And in his loneliness, he wept. One thought brought some hope and consolation. Even though they had forgotten him, he had not forgotten them.

The visible Protestant Church was in the grasp of the Romish Church; and was not created, but only emancipated and unlocked from that grasp, at the era of the Reformation. I will illustrate this by an anecdote, recorded in the travels, I think, of Lord Lindsay. That nobleman states, that, on visiting the Pyramids of Egypt, he found in one of those ancient repositories of the dead a mummy, which indicated, according to the mode of interpreting hieroglyphics adopted by Champollion and by Young, that it was full two thousand years old. On opening the case, and unrolling the mummy, he found in its right hand a bulbous or rather tuberous root. Lord Lindsay wondered whether vegetable life could outlast an imprisonment of two thousand years; and, in order to put the problem to the test, he opened the hand of the mummy, took out the vegetable root, planted it in a fertile and favorable soil, and exposed it to the sunshine and the dews of heaven: and, to his amazement and delight, that lately dry root shot up, and presented a stem unfolding a most beautiful dahlia. Now, I say the Protestant Church before the Reformation was in a position similar to that of the dahlia-root: it was compressed in the iron grasp of the most deadly despotism. And all that Calvin and Luther and Knox did was to unlock the hand that held it; to take out the concealed-epitome of heaven's high principles; to plant in the fatherland of Germany, of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland; and to place it beneath the beams of the Sun of Righteousness and the rain-drops of the Spirit of God, till it took root, and grew up, and presented, as it does now, wide-spreading boughs crowned with ten thousand blossoms, destined to wave with immortal fragrancy, and to constitute the accumulating glory and the richest and the holiest ornaments of our native land.

— Dr. Cumming

Result of. A gentleman in England met his neighbor's coachman, looking remarkably facetious, on Monday morning. As the man touched his hat, he said to him, "Well, John, what has happened to make you look so pleasant to-day?"—"Why, sir," was the reply, "what do you think? We are a pretty lot at our house; that we are. I started with five of us in the old carriage, yesterday morning. First of all, I drove the young mistress to the Church, and then old master to the Wesleyans; next I took young master to the Romans; and wife went to the Ranters; and, when I had put up the horse, I took a turn myself with the Calvinists."

The ancient insignia of the Waldensian Church was a candlestick, with a light shedding its rays across the surrounding darkness, and encircled with seven stars, and the motto, "Lux lucet in tenebris."

It is not the nations, but the Church, that God has cherished as the apple of his eye. The three great nationalities, Jewish, Greek, and Roman, that stood together over the cradle of our religion, perished not till they had ceased to be of service to Christ. Charlemagne, Charies V., Cromwell, and Napoleon were all soldiers of the Church, whether conscious of it or not, whether willingly or not. Here we find a key of the history of other ages and nations; a thread that will lead us out of every labyrinth of the present and the future. Towards Calvary, for thousands of years, all the lines of history converged. And now for other thousands of years, to the end of time, from Calvary will the lines diverge, till "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and he shall reign for ever and ever."

— Dr. Hitchcock

Of W. de Howton, abbot of Croxton, it is stated, that he bequeathed to the abbey at his death, in 1274, "a Bible, in nine tomes, faire written, and excellently well glossed by Solomon, archdeacon of Leicester, and paid for it fifty marks sterling," or 33l. 6s. 8d. And in a valuation of books, bequeathed to Merton College, at Oxford, before the year 1300, a Psalter with glosses, or marginal annotations, is valued at ten shillings; and St. Austin, on Genesis, and a Concordantia, or Harmony, are each valued at the same price. Let it be remembered, that these sums should be multiplied by fifteen, to bring them to the present value of money; and, in some instances, the comparative value would be still too low, as in the instance of the laboring men, whose pay, in 1272, was only three halfpence per day, and who must therefore have devoted the earnings of fourteen or fifteen years to the purchase of a Bible. Whitaker, in his "History of Craven," affords the additional information, "that towards the close of the thirteenth, and at the commencement of the fourteenth century, the average wages of a man-servant, with meat and clothing, were only from three to five shillings per annum; that reapers were paid twopence a day; and a sheep sold for a shilling; and thirty quarters of fossil-coal, for seventeen shillings and six pence." Madox, in his "History of the Exchequer," says, that in 1240, "the building of two arches of London Bridge, cost only twenty-five pounds;" eight pounds less than the Bible bequeathed to the abbey of Croxton, by abbot W. de Howton.

Josephus testifies of his countrymen, that if asked concerning the laws of Moses, they could answer as readily as their names.

Erasmus, speaking of Jerome, says, "Who ever learnt by heart the whole Scripture, or imbibed or meditated on it as he did?"

Tertullian, after his conversion, was engaged night and day in reading the Scriptures, and got much of them by heart.

Of one Marcus, a primitive Christian, who was well instructed in the morning of life, it is recorded, that he became so expert in the Scriptures, when he was but a youth, that he could repeat the whole of the Old and New Testaments. Of one or two others it is said, that being men of good memories, they got the Scriptures by heart, only by hearing them continually read by others; they not being able to read a single word.

It is related of Beza, one of the reformers, that when he was old, and could not recollect the names of persons and things he had heard but a few minutes before, he could remember and repeat the epistles of St. Paul, which he had committed to memory when he was young.

The celebrated Witsius was able to recite almost any passage of Scripture, in its proper language, together with its context, and the criticisms of the best commentators.

Bonaventure wrote out the Scriptures twice, and learnt most of them by heart.

Zuinglius wrote out St. Paul's Epistles, and committed them to memory.

Cromwell, Earl of Essex, in his journey to and from Rome, learned all the New Testament by heart.

Bishop Ridley thus attests his own practice, and the happy fruit of it: "The walls and trees of my orchard, could they speak, would bear witness, that there I learned by heart almost all the Epistles; of which study, although in time a greater part of it was lost, yet the sweet savor thereof, I trust I shall carry with me to heaven."

Gregory Lopez, a Spanish monk in Mexico, in the sixteenth century, committed to memory both the Old and New Testaments, in the short space of four years, spending four hours a day in memorizing them.

Viscount Carteret, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1724, could repeat, from memory, the whole of the New Testament, from the first chapter of Matthew to the end of Revelation. It was astonishing to hear him quote very long passages from it, with as much accuracy as if he were reading a book.

The Rev. Thomas Threlkeld, of Rochdale, in Lancashire, (Eng.) might have been justly called a living concordance to the Holy Scriptures. If three words only were mentioned, except perhaps those words of mere connexion which occur in hundreds of passages, he could immediately, without hesitation, assign the chapter and verse where they could be found; and, inversely, upon mentioning the chapter and verse, he could repeat the words. This power of retention enabled him with ease to make himself master of many languages. Nine or ten he read with critical skill. It is affirmed by a friend, who lived near him, and who was on intimate terms with him, that he was well acquainted with every language in which he had a Bible or New Testament. His powers of reference and quotation were as great and ready in the Hebrew and Greek as in the English.

# 70. The Bible Neglected or Rejected.

The first time I had the pleasure of being in the company of the Rev. John Wesley, (says a correspondent of the N. Y. Evangelist,) was in the year 1783. I asked him what must be done to keep Methodism alive when he was dead, to which he immediately answered,—"The Methodists must take heed to their Doctrine, their Experience, their Practice, and their Discipline. If they attend to their doctrines only, they will make the people Antinomians; if to the experimental part of religion only, they will make them Enthusiasts; if to the practical part only, they will make them Pharisees; and if they do not attend to their discipline, they will be like persons who bestow much pains in cultivating their garden, and put no fence round it, to save it from the wild boar of the forest."