The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-07-21
HEAVENS OPEN DOOR.
TALMAGB breaches ON THE
BANIsRMENT OF JOIN.

/
Observant of all It's Occurrences.
The Open Door an Entrance for
Prayers-Gives Us Chance to Look
Within
Brooklyn, July 2O.-Dr Talmage's SER
mon to-day is on the "Wide Open Door,"
and his text, Rev. iv., l.: And behold, a
door was opened in heaven" Following is
his sermon:
John had been the pastor Of a church in
Ephesus. He had been driven from his
position i'll that city by an indignant popu-
lace. The preaching of pure and earnest
gospel had made an excitement dangerous
to every form of iniquity. This will often
he the result of pointed preaching. Men
will finch under the sword strokes of truth.
You ought not to be surprised that tha
blind man makes an outcry 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 exhibit
lug impatience at some plain utterance
of truth which smites pet sin
that they are hugging to their hea rts.
After the patient has been so low that for
weeks he said nothing and noticed nothing,
gins 20 be little cross. And so | notice
that spiritual invalids are in fair way for
recovery when they become somewhat
irascible and choleric under the treatment
or the truth. But John had SO nightly in
culpated public iniquity that he had been
banished from his church and sent to Pat
mos, desolate island, only a mile in
breadth, against whose rocky coasts the sea
rose ana mingled its voice with the prayers
and hymnngs Of the heroic exile.
You cannot but contrast the condition of
this DanIshed apostle with that of another
famous exile. Look at the apostle on
Patmos aid the great Frenchman on st.
Helena. Both were suffering among DESC
latiol 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 tho infinite differ
ishable crown Of worldly authority,
the o,her for one eternally lustrous. The
one had marked his path with the bleached
skulls Of his followers, the other had intro
dueed peace and good will among men. The
one had lived chiefly for self-aggrandize-
ment 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 orphan
age and widowhood, while the triumphs OF
the other made joy IN heaven among the
angels of God.
The heart of one exile was filed with re-
mos aud despair, while tho other was
| lighted up with thanksgiving aud inex-
| tingulshable hope. Over ST. Helena gath
| cred the blackness of 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
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 or contending elements around his
| suffering body was drowned in the trumpet
ing of trumpets and the harping of harps,
the victorious cry Of multitudes like the
| voice of many waters and the hosanna OF
Lo IS in number like the stars.
W hat dull spot upon which to stand
and have such glorious visionl Had Pat
mos 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 geranium and cactus, we would not have
been surprised at the splendor Of the vision.
| But the last place you would 20 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 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 scraps Of old paper picked up
Iuh1 10 AIa1 n
| ten. 1t was while John Calvin was a refu-
gee 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 a 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
desolation In the scene of the grandest heav-
| emily revelations From the barren, surf.
beaten rock of Patmos, John looked uD and
| saw that 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 OBJ
servant of all occurrences. If we would
gain wide prospect, we climb up into q
tower or mountain. The higher up we are
the broader the landscape we behold. Yet
L1OoI view Is IlunlU6Q To
only few leagues-here a river and there
lake yonder mountain peak. But what must
be the glory # the earth in the eyes 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 aud 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
wiidernesses 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 aud forests and islands taken in
single glance of their great Creator.
AS we take our stand upon some high
point, single objects dwindle into such in
| significance that we cease to see them in
the minutie, and we behold only the grand
points of the scenery. But not so with
| God. Although standing far up in the
tower of heaven, nothing by reason OF IFS
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 mag
nolia, 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