Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1890-08-01
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE'S SUN
Day SERMON.
Subject: 1.-THE Wide open Door"

TEXT: land, behold, q door scGs opened
in heduen."-Rev. w.. 1.
John had been the pastor of a church in
EphesuS He had been driven from his
position in that city by an indignant pop
ulace. The preaching of pure and earnest
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
outcrv of pain when the surgeon removes
the cataract from his eye. 1t Is good sign
when you see men uneasy IN the church pew,
and exhibiting Impotence at some plain ut
terance of truth which s1nites q pet sin that
they are hugging to their hearts After the
said nothing and noticed nothing, it is
thought to be good sign when he begins to
be little cross. And SO / notice that spir-
itual invalids are in a fair way for recovery
when they become somewhat raScible and
choleric under the treatment Of the truth.
But John had SO nightly inculpated public
iniquity that he had been banished from his
church and sent to Potmas a desolate island,
only a 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
mad been turned off to die. Yet mark the
infinite diference-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 lf-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
w1dowhood, 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 ightnings Of
q wrathful God, and the spray flung over
the rocks seemed to hiss with the condemna-
ton, ''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 CLEAN of waters from under
the throne like crystal; and the barrenness
of the ground under the apostle was forgot
bending under the rich glow of heavenly
fruitaga while the hoarse blast of contend
ing elements around his suffering body was
drowned in the tr;lmpeting 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.
What a dull spot upon which to stand and
have such 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
splendor of the vision. But the last place
you would go 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. Itwas
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 was written.
1t was while John Calvin was a refugee
fir nm bloody persecution, and was hid in a
house at AngOuleme, that he conceived the
idea of writing his immortal ''Inst flutes"
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 lesola-
ton is the scene of the grandest heavenly
revelations. From the barren, surf beaten
rock of Patmos John looked up and saw that
a door was opened in heaven.
Again, the announcement of such an
opened entrance suggests the truth that God
is looking down upon the earth and observ-
ant of all occurrences If we would gain
wide prospect we climb up into a tower or
mountain. The higher up we are the broad
er the landscape we behold. Yet our most
comprehensive view is limited to only a few
1eagues-here a river and there lake and
yonder 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 in in single glance of their great
~Teator.
SIS we take our stand upon some high point
angle objects dwindle into such insignificence
that we Cease to see than in the minutie, and
we behold only the grand points of the
scenery. But not so with God. Although
standing far up in the very tower of heaven
nothing by reason of its malIness 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
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 dungeon but He
sees it and in high heaven makes record of
its fall.
The xynrld,s in;nnitioS in all tho;r. rrhns+l;