Thomas County cat., 1890-08-07
TALNACES SERMON.

AnO, Ucuclu, 0OOn WdS< OPcArO3Ai
heaven" Following is his sermon:
John had been the pastor of church
in Ephesus Hef1ad been driven from
his position in that city by an indig
nant ;populace. The preaching of .
pure and earnest gospel had made az
excitement dangerous to every form OF
iniquity. This will often be the result
of pointed preaching. Men will finch
under the sword stroke of truth. You
ought not 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 ex-
hibiting impatience at some plain utter
ance 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 a good sign
when he begins to be little cross. And
so notice that spiritual invalids are in
a 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 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 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 Patmos and the great French
man on St. Helena. ROth were suffer
ing among desolation and barrenness
because of offenses committed. Both
had passed through lives eventful and
thrilling. Both had been honored 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 authority, the other for one
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 aggran
iizement and the other for the glory of
Christ. The successes of the one were
achieved amid the breaking of thou
sands of hearts and the acute, heaven
rending cry of orphanage and widow
hood, while the triumphs of the other
made joy in heaven among the angels
of God. ee-z
The heart of one exile was filled with
remorse and despair, while the other
was lighted up with thanksgiving and
inextinguishable hope. Over st. Helena
gathered the blackness of darkness,
clouds lighted up by no sunrising, but
rent and fringed and heaving with the
of a 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 forgotten
in the roll and gleam of waters from
under the throne like crystal, and 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
in the trumpeting of trumpets
and the harping OF harps, the victorious
cry of multitudes like the voice of many
waters and the hosanna of hosts in
like the stars.
What dull spot upon which to stand
and have such glorious vision! Had
Patmos been so tropical island harbored
with the luxuriance fo perpetual sum-
mer and drowsy with breath of CHINA
mon and cassia and tesselated with long
aisles of geranium and cactus we would
not have been surprised at the splendor
of the vision. Lut the last place you
would go to if you wanted to find beau
tiful visions would be the island of Pat |
mos. Yet tits around such gloomy spot
that god makes the most wonderful
1t YVES looking through the |
awful shadows of a prison that John
Bunyan saw the gate of the celestial
city. God there divided the light from
the darkness. In that gloomy abode
on scrap of old paper picked up about
his room, the great dream was written.
1t was while John Calvin was a refugee
from bloody persecution and was hid
in a house at Angouleme, that he con-
ceived the idea of writing his immortal
instituts. Jacob had many time seen
sun breaking through the wists and
them into shafts and pillars
of fiery splendor that might well have
been ladder for the angels to tread on
but the famous ladder which he saw