News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-07-24
THE WIDE OPEN DOOR.
REV. DIR. TALMAGE's SERMON SUNDAY.


BROOKLYN, July 20.-''The Wide
Open Door" was the subject of DR.. Tai
IMAGES sermon today, the text being
Rev iv, L: "And, behold, door was
opened in heaven"
John had been the pastor of church
in E2hesus He had been driven from
his position in that city by an indig-
nant populace. The preaching of a
pure and earnest gospel had made an
excitement dangerous 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 cutlery of pain
when the surgeon removes the cataract
from his eye.
| It is a good sign when you see men
uneasy in the church pew and exhibit
ing impatience at some plain utterance
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 good sign
when he begins to be a little cross.
And so notice that spiritual invalids
are in a fair way for recovery when
| they become somewhat irascible and
choleric under the treatment of the
| truth. But John had so nightly in
culpated public iniquity that he had
been banished from his church and
sent to Patmos, 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 condi-
ton 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 desolation and bar
renness because of offenses committed.
Both had passed through lives event
full and thrilling. Both had been hon
ored and despised. Both were impe-
rial natures. Both had been turned
off to die Yet mark the infinite diff
ference: one had fought for the perish
able 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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and the
other for the glory of Christ. The sue
cesses 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.
DESPAIR-HOPE.
The heart of one exile was filled
with remorse and despair, while the
other was lighted up with thanksgiv-
ing and inextinguishable hope. Over
st. Helena gathered the blackness of
darkness, clouds lighted up by no sum
rising, but rent and fringed and heav-
ing with the lightnings of wrathful
God, and the spray flung over the
rocks seemed to hiss with the condem-
nation: 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 CLEAN of waters from under the
throne like crystal and the barren
ness 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 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
number like the stars.
What dull spot upon which to stand
and have such a glorious visionl Had
Patmos been some tropical island ar
bored with the luxuriance of perpetual
summer, and drowsy with breath of
cinnamon and cassia, and tessellated
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 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 darkness. In that gloomy
abode, on scraps of old paper picked up
oh n
written.
1t was while John Calvin was a
refugee from bloody persecution and
was hid in house at Angouleme that
he conceived the idea of writing his
immortal institutes Jacob had
many a time seen the sun breaking
through the mists and kindling 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 scared through a
gloomy night over the wilderness. The
night of trial and desolation is the
scene of the grandest heavenly revela-
tons. From the barren, surf beaten
rock of Patmos John looked up and
saw that a door was opened in heaven.
GOD SEES EVERYTHING.
Again, the announcement of such an
opened entrance suggests the truth
that God is looking down upon the
earth and observant of all occurrences.
If we would gain a wide prospect we
climb up into a tower or mountain
The higher up we are the broader the
landscape we behold. Yet our most
comprehensive view is limited to only
a few leagues-here q river and there a
lake and yonder mountain peak.
But what 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 prairies
and oceans; lands bespangled with
tropical 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 for
ests and islands taken in in a single
glance of their great Creator.
As we take our stand upon some
high point single objects dwindle into
such insignificance that we cease to see
them in the minuti;e, and we. behold
1lxy fba Il