The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1890-08-01
THE DOOR OPENED.
THE INVITATION TO InE BETTER
WORLD ABOVE.

John on Patmos and Napoleon st.
Helena Contrasted-Bunyan View of n
Celestial City Through the Open Door
Calvin's Inspiration.
DIR. Talmage's sermon Sunday was
on "The Wide Open Door," and his
text, Revelations iv, 1: 'And, behold,
a door was opened in Heaven" Fol
lowing is his sermon:
John had been the pastor of II
church in Ephesus. He had been
driven from his position in that city
by an indignant populace. The
preaching of pure and earnest gos
pei had made an excitement danger
GUS to every form of iniquity. 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 cata-
ract from his eye. 1t is good sign
when you see men uneasy in the
church pew and exhibiting impatience
at some plain utterance of truth which
smites pet sin that they are hugging
to their hearts. After the patient has
been so low that for two weeks he
said nothing and noticed nothing, it
is thought to be good sign when he
begins to be little cross. And so 1
notice that spiritual invalids are in
fair way for recovery when they be-
come somewhat irascible and choleric
under the treatment of the truth.
But John had so nightly inculpated
public iniquity that he had been ban
ished from his chuch and sent to
Patmos, disolate island, only mile
in breadth, against whose rocky coast
the sea rose and mingled it's voice
with the prayers and hymns of the
heroic exile.
You cannot but contrast the con-
dltion of this banished apostle with
that of another famous exile. Look
at the apostle on Patmos and the
great Frenchman on ST. Helena.
Both were suffering among desola-
ton and barrenness because of often
ses committed. Both had passed
through lives eventtul and thrilling.
Both had been honored and dispised.
Both were imperial natures. Both
had been turned off to die. Yet mark
the infinite difference; one had fought
for the ,,erishable crown of worldly
authority, the other for one etelnally
lustrous. The one had marked his
path with the bleached skulls of his
followers, the other had introduced
peace and goodwill among men. The
one had lived chiefly for self f-aggrand-
isement 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 flleal
with remorse and despair, W lille the
other was lighted up with thanksgiv-
ing and inextinguishable hope. Oyer
st. Helena gathered the blackness of
darl ness, clouds lighted up by no
snnrising. but rent and fringed and
having with the hght1hngs OF q wrath
full God, and the spray flung over the,
rocks seemed to hiss, with the con
demnation: 'The way of tie ungodly
shall perish" But over Patmoa:ths
Heavens were opened, and the?stormy
sea beneath was forgotten in the rofi
and CLEAN of waters from undef the
throne Like crystal, and the barren
ness of the ground under the apostle
was forgotten as above him ;hr saw
the trees of life, all bending uNaer the
rich glow of Heavenly fruitaEe, RAile
the hoarse blast of contenuinsels,!
ments around his suffering DesFy vxS vS
drowned in the trumpeting of trim
pets, apd the harping of harps, the
victorious cry of multitudes like the
voice of many waters,; and tho
hosanna of hosts in number like tho
stars. -.
What dull spot upon which to
stand and-have such a glorious visioi!'
Had Patmos been some tropical
island, arbored with the luxuriance
of perpetual summer and drowsy
with breath of cinnamon and cassia,
and tesselated with long aisles of
geraniums and cactus, 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
beautiful visions would be the island
of Patmos. Yet it is around such
gloomy spots that God makes the
most wonderful revelation. 1t was
looking through the awful shadows
of prison that John Bunyan saw
the gate of the celestial city. God
there divided the light from the dark
ness. In that gloomy abode, on
scraps of old paper picked up about
his room, the great dream was written
It was while John Calvin was refu-
gee from bloody persecution and was
hid IN house at Angouleme, that he
conceived the idea of writing his i'm
mortal Institutes. Jacob had many
o time seen the sun breaking through
the mists and kindling them into
shafts and pillars of fiery splendor
that might well have been a ladder for
the angels to tread on, but the
famous ladder which he saw scared
through q gloomy night over the
wilderness. The night of trial and
desolation is the scene of the grand