Connecticut western news., 1890-07-23
THE WIDE OPEN DOOR.
SUBJECT OF DR. TALMAGE'S SER
 MON FOR SUNDAY, JULY 20.

SUBJECT OF DR. TALMAGE'S SER-
 MON FOR SUNDAY, JULY 20.
 The Brooklyn Divine Tells of the Won
 derful Receptive Power of Heaven-The
 Poor, the Rich, the Sick, the We'll, the Learned and the Ignorant All Welcome. BROOKLYN, July 20.-'"The Wide Open Door" was the subject of Dr. Tal mage's sermon today, the text being Rev. iv, 1: "And, behold. door was opened in heaven"
 John had been the pastor of a 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 outory of pain when the surgeon removes the cataract from his eye.
 It is good sign when you see men uneasy in the church pew and exhibit ing 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 weeks he said nothing and noticed nothing it is thought to be 8 good sign when he begins to be 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, a desolate island, only mile in breadth, against whose rocky coasts the sea rose and mingled it's 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 ofenses committed. Both had passed through lives event. ful 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 aggrandizement and the other for the glory of Christ. The suc- cesses of the one were achieved amid f thu brvrsf1i11g of ti1ousen1as of noa1ts and the acute, heaven rending cry o1 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 o1 darkness, clouds lighted up by no sun. rising, but rent and fringed and heav- ing with the ightnings of 8 wrathfu] God, and the spray flung over the rocks seemed to hiss with the condem- nation: ''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 barren ness of the ground under the apostle was forgotten as above him he saw the trees of life all bending under the rict 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 o1 multitudes like the voice of many waters and the hosanna of hosts ir number like the stars.
 What dull spot upon which to stanc and have such a glorious vision! Ha6 Patmos been some tropical island ar bored with the luxuriance of perpetua summer, and drowsy with breath O cinnamon and cassia, and tessellate6 with long aisles of geranium and cac tus we would not have been surprised at the splendor of the vision But thu last place you would go to if you wanted to find beautiful visions would be tn, island of Patmos Yet it is around sucl gloomy spots that God makes the mos wonderful revelation. It was lookins through the awful shadows of priso1
 that John Bunyan saw the gate of tn celestial city. God there divided tn light from the darkness In that gloom, abode, on scraps of old paper picked u] about his room, the great dream wa written.
 It was while John Calvin was refugee from bloody persecution am was hid in house at Angouleme tha he conceived the idea of writing hi immortal Institutes :" Jacob haa many a time seen the sun breakin through the mists and kindling then into shafts and pillars of fiery splendo that might we'll have been ladder fo the angels to tread on, but the famou ladder which he saw scared through 7 gloomy night over the wilderness. Tn night of trial and desolation is tn scene of the grandest heavenly revels tions. From the barren, surf beate rock of Patlnos John looked up an ] saw that door was opened in heaver GOD SEES EVERYTHING.
 Again, the announcement of such a : opened entrance suggests the trut : that God is looking down upon tn