The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-08-06
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The Wide open Door"

John had been the pastor Of church in
Ephesus. He had been driven from his
position in that city by an indignant pop
ulace. The preaching Of pure and earnest
gospel had made an excitement danger.
Gus to every form Of iniquity. This will
often be the result Of pointed preach
ing. 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. 1t IS a good sign
when you see men uneasy in the church pew,
and exhibiting impatience at some plain ut
terance Of truth which smites 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 a good sign when he begins to
be a little cross. And so notice that spir-
itual invalids are in fair way for recovery
when they become somewhat irascible and
choIeric under the treatment Of the truth.
But John had so nightly inculpated public
iniquity that be had been banished from his
church and sent to Potmas, desolate island,
only mile in breadth, against whose rocky
coasts the sea rose and mingled its voice with
the prayers and hymnings of the heroic exile.
You cannot but contrast the condition OF
this banished apostle with that Of another
famous exile. Look at the apostle on Pat
mos and the great Frenchman on st. Helena.
Both were suffering among desolation and
barrenness because of offenses committed.
Both had passed through lives eventful and
thrilling. Both had been honored and de-
spised. 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 authority, 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 self-aggrandisement
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
wldowhood, while the triumphs OF the other
made joy in heaven among the angels OF
God.
The heart of one exile was filed with re-
morse and despair, while the other was
lighted up with thanksgiving. and mex
tinguishable hope. Over st. Helena gath
cred the blackness and darkness clouds.
lighted up by no sunrising, but rent and
fringed and heaving with the lightnings of
a wrathful God, and the spray flung over
the rocks seemed to hiss with the condemna-
ton, 1.-THE way of the ungodly shall perish"
But over Patmos the heavens were opened,
and the stormy sea beneath was forgotten
in the roll and gleam of waters from under
tho throne like crystal and the barrenness
of the ground under the apostle was forgot
ten as above him he saw che trees Of life all
bending under the rich glow of heavenly
fruitage while the hoarse blast Of contend
ing elements around his suffering body was
drowned in the trumpet:nG Of trumpets and
theharping Of harps, the victorious cry of
multitudes like the voice of many waters
and the hosanna of hosts in number like the
stars.
What dull spot upon which to stand and
have such a glorious visionl Had Patmos
been some tropical island, arbored with the
luxuriance of perpetual summer, and drowsy
with breath Of cinnamon and caSsia, and tes-
selated with long aisles of geranium and cac-
tus We would not have been surprised at the
spIendor of the vision. But the last place
you would 60 to if you wanted to find beau
tiful visions would be the island of Patmos.
Yet it is around such gloomy spots that God
makes the most wonderful revelation. twas
looking through the awful shadows of
prison that John Bunyan saw the gate of the
celestial city. God there divided the light
from the darkness. In that gloomy abode,
on scraps of old paper picked up about his
room, the great dream NYs written.
lU was Wulle UOuu SdKSh was q iSluSCO
from bloody persecution, and was hid in
house at Angouleme, that he conceived the
idea of writing his immortal institutes.
Jacob had many time seen the sun break
ing through the mistS and kindling them
into shafts and pillars of fiery splendor that
might we'll have been ladder for the angels
to tread on, but the famous ladder which he
saw scared through gloomy night over the
wilderness The night of trial and desola-
tion is the seen, Of the grandest heavenly
revelations. From the barren, surf beaten
rock of Patmos John looked up and saw that
door was opened in heaven.
Again, the announcement of such an
opened entrance suggests the truth that God
shocking down upon the earth and obserV-
ant of all occurrences. If we would gain
wide prospect we climb up into tower or
mountain. The higher up we are the broad-
comprehensive view is limited to only few
leagues-here river and there lake and
yonder a mountain peak. But what must
must be the glory of the earth in the eye OF
Him who from the door Of heaven beholds at
one glance all mountains and lakes and prai-
ries and oceans lands bespangled with trop-
ical gorgeousness and Arctic regions white
with everlasting SHOWS, Lebanon majestic
with cedars and American wilds solemn with
unbroken forests Of pine, African deserts OF
glistening sand and wildernesses OF water
unbroken by ships keel, continents covered
with harvests Of wheat and rice and maize,
the glory Of every zone, the whole world of
mountains and seas and forests and islands
taken i'll in single glance Of their great
Creator.
As we take ourstand upon some high point
single objects dwindle into such insignificence
that we cease to see them in the minutin, and
we behold only the grand points Of the
standing far up in the very tower Of heaven,
nothing by reason ofits smallness escapes His
vision. Every lily of the field, every violet
under the grass. the tiniest 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
Ills 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 dungeon but He
sees it, and in high heaven makes record Of
its fall
The worlds iniquities in all their ghastli-
ness glover under His vision. Wars AMI
tumults, and the desolations of famine and
earthquake, whirlwind and shipwreck
spread out before Linn. 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 triciling Of
q raindrop. Earthly royalty clutches ner-
vously its scepter and waits in suspense the
will Of inhamed subjects, and the crown is
tossed from one family to another. But
above all earthly vicissitudes and the u.s.
sault of human passions in unshaken security
stands the King Of Kings watching all the
affairs Of His empire from the introduction
Of an era to the counting Of the hairs Of your
head.
Again, learn from the fact that a door
In heaven is opened that there is a way Of
entrance for our prayers and Of esress for