The Russellville Democrat., 1890-07-31
"WIDE-OPEN DOOR,
Dr. Talmage Discusses St. Johns
 Vision.
The Doorway of Heavon Is an Entrance for Prayers and an Egress for Bless ings-The Christians Final En-
 trance Into the Blessed Place.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage took for the subject of recent sermon at Brooklyn Tabernacle the ''Wide Open Door," preaching from the following text:
 And behold. door was opened in Heaven. Rev. iv., l.
 John had been the pastor of a church in Ephesus. He has been driven from his position in that city by an indig- nant populace. Tho preaching of pure and earnest gospel had made an excite ment dangerous to evory form of ini- quity. This will often be the result of pointed preaching, Men will finch under the sword strokes of truth. You ought not to be surprised that the blind man makes an outcry of pain when the surgeon removes the cataract from his eye. It is good sign when you sec men uneasy in the church pew and.ex- hibiting impatience at some plain ut terance of truth which smites a pet sin that they are hugging to their hearts. After the patient has been so low that for weeks he said nothing and noticed nothing, it is thought to be sign when he begins to be little cross. And so l noticed that spiritual invalids are in a fair way for recovery when they be- come somewhat irrascible and choleric under the treatment of the truth. But John had so nightly inculpated pub lie iniquity that he had been banished from his church and sent to Patmos, a desolate island, only mile in breadth, against whose rocky coasts the sea rose and mingled its voice with prayers and hymnings of the heroic exile.
 You can not but contrast the condi- tion of this banished apostle with that of another famous exile. Look at the apostle on Patmos and tho great French man on St. Helena. Both were suffering amongdesolation and barrenness because of ofenses committed. Both had passed through lives eventful and thrilling. Both had been honorod and despised. Both were imperial natures. Both had been turned off to die. Yet mark the infinite difference--one had fought for the perishable crown of worldly author ity, the other for one eternally lustrous. The one had marked his path with the bleached skulls of his followers, the other had introduced peace and good will among men. The one had lived chiefly for lf-aggrandizement and the other for the glory of Christ The successes of the one were achieved amid the breaking of thousands of hearts and the acute, heaven-rending cry of orphanage and widowhood, while the triumphs of the other made joy in Heaven among the angels of God.
 The heart of one exile was filled with remorse and despair, while the other was lighted up with thanksgiving and inextinguishable hope. Over St. Hell ena gathered the blackness of darkness, clouds lighted up by no sunrising, but rent and fringed and heaving with the lightnings of wrathful God, and the spray flung over the rocks seemed to hiss with the condemnation: ''The way of the ungodly shall perish" But over Patmos the heavens were opened. and the stormy sea beneath was for gotten in the roll and gleam Of waters from under the throne-like crystal, aRd the barrenness of the ground under the apostle was forgotten as above him he saw the trees of life all bending under the rich glow of heavenly fruitage, while the hoarse blast of contending elements around his suffering body was drowned in the trumpet.ng of trumpets and the harping of harps, the victorious cry of multitudes like the voice of many waters and the hosanna of hosts in number like the stars.
 As we take our stand upon some high point, single objects dwindle into such insignifcance that we cease to see them in the minutie, and we behold only tho grand points of tho scenery But not so with God. Although stand ing far up in the very tower of Heaven, nothing by reason of it's smallnes es- capes his vision Every lily of the field, every violet under the grass, the tini- est heliotrope, aster and gentian are as plainly seen by him as the proudest magnolia, and not one vein of color in their leaf deepens or fades without His notice. From this door in Heaven God sees all human conduct and the worlds moral changes. Not one tear of sorrow falls in hospital or workshop or dun geon but He sees it and in high Heaven makes record of it's fall. The world s iniquities in all their ghastliness glover under his vision. Wars and tumults and the desolations of famine and earthquake, whirlwind and ship wreck, spread out before Him. If there were no being in all the universe but God, He could be happy with such an outlook as the door of Heaven. But there He stands, no more disturbed by the fall of kingdom than the dropping of leaf, no more excited by the rising of a throne than the bursting of bud, the falling of deluge than the triekling of raindrop Earthly royalty clutches neryously it's scepter and waits in sus- pense the will of infamed subjects and the crown is tossed from one family to another. But above all earthly yicissi- tude and the assault of human passions, in unshaken security stands the King of kings, watching all the affairs of His empire from the introduction of an era Co the counting of the hairs of your head.
 Again; I learn from the fact that a uOOr III heaven la Optuels tu1b lutft IS way of entrance for our prayers and of egress for divine blessings. It does not seem that our weak voice has strength enough to climb up to Gods ear. Shall our prayers be lost in the clouds? Have words wings? The truth is plain. Heavens door is wide open to receive every prayer Must it not be loud? Ought it not to ring up with the strength Of stout lungs? Must it not be loud call, such as drowning men utter or like the shout of some chief tain in the battle? No; whisper is as good as a shout and the mere wish of the soul in profound silence is as good as a whisper. IL rises just as high and accomplishes just as much.
 What dull spot upon which to stand and have such glorious yisionl Had Patmos been some tropical island, ar bored with the luxuriance of perpetual summer and drowsy with breath of cin- namon and cassia, and tesselated with long aisles of geranium and cactus, we would not have been surprised at the splendor of the vision. But the last