The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1892-07-28
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE's SUN
DAY SER m ON


robes, and palms in their hands. aud crie'
ioith a loud voice, saying, Satrdtion to on
God uhich Sttteth upon the throne. dHC
unto the bN-Revelation vii, g 10
1t is impossible to come in contact witt
anything grand or beautiful in art, mature
q religion without being protited and ele'
waited. We go into the art gallery and our
soul meets the soul of the painter, and we
hear the hum of his forests and the clash OF
his conflicts and see the cloud poisoning OF
the sky and the foam poisoning OF the
ocean, and we come out from the gallery
better men than when we went in. We &c
into the concert of music and are lifted into
enchantment; for days after our soul seems
to rock with very tumult of JOY, as the sea,
after a long stress of weather, rolls and
rocks and surges great while before 1t
comes back to its ordinary calm
On the same principle it is profitable to
think of heaven, and look off upon that land
scape of joy and light which st. John de-
picts-the rivers of gladness. the trees of
life, the thrones of power, the comminglings
of everlasting love. | wish this morning
that could bring heaven from the list of in
tangibles an make it seem to you as it
really is-the great fact in all history, the
depot OF all ages, the parlor OF Gods uni
verse.
This account in my text gives picture of
came to New York for the first time on the
day that Kossuth arrived from Hungary,
and he saw the arches lifted, and the flow
ers flung in the Streets and he heard the
guns booming, he would have been very
foolish to suppose that that was the ordinary
appearance of the city. While heaven Is
always grand and always beautiful | think
my text speaks of a gala day in heaven.
1t is time of great celebration-perhaps
of the birth fha of
perhaps of the downfall of some despotism,
perhaps because of the rushing i'll
of the millennium. | know not
what, but it does seem to me in reading this
passage as if it were holiday in heaven.
''After this / beheld, and lo great multi
tude which no man could number, of ali
nations and kindreds and people and tongues,
stood before the throne and before the
Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms
in their hands, and cried with loud voice,
saying, Salvation to our God which stitch
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb"
l shall speak to you of the glorified in
heaven-their number, their antecedents,
their dress, their symbols and their song.
But how shall | begin by telling you of the
numbers of those in heaven? l have seen a
curious estimate by an ingenious man who
calculates how long the world was going to
last, and how many people there are in each
matter, and says he thinks there will be
twenty.seven trillions of souls in gbry. l
have no faith in his estimate. | simply take
the plain announcement of the text-it is
"a great multitude, which no man can
number"
One of the most impressive things have
looked upon is an army. Standing upon a
hillside you see forty thousand or fifty thou
sand men pass along. You can hardly
imagine the impression ifyou have not actu-
ally felt it. But you may take all the
armies that the earth has ever seen-the
leglons OF Sennacherib and Cyrus and
Cesar, Xer1es and Alexander and Napoleon,
and all or modern forces and put them in
one great array, and then on some swift
steed you may ride along the line and
review the troops; and that accumulated
host from all ages seems like half formed
regiment compared with the great array Of
the redeemed.
stood one day at Williamsport, and saw
on the opposite side of the Potomac the forces
coming down. regiment after regiment, and
brigade after brigade. 1t seemed as though
there was no end to the procession, But
now let me take the field glass of ST. John
and look off upon the hosts of heaven
thousands upon thousands, ten thousand
times ten thousand, one hundred and forty
and four thousand, and thousands of thou
roiius, uiitil pun uOWu lue uelu glass ana
say, II cannot estimate tia great multi
tude that no man can number"
You ma tax your imagination and tor
ture your ingenuity and break down your
powers of calculation in attempting to ex-
press the multitudes of the released from
earth and the enrapture1 of heaven, and
talk OF hundreds of hundreds of hundreds,
OF thousands of thousands of thousands, OF
millions of millions of millions until your
X,on annac
hausted and overwhelmed you exclaim: II
cannot count them-a great multitude that
no man can number
But my subject advances, and tells you Of
their antecedents, ''of all nations and kin
dreds and tongues" Some of them spoke
Scotch, Irish, German, English, Italian
Spanish, Tamil, Choctaw, Burmese. After
men have been long in the land you can tell
by their accentuation from what nationality
they came, and suppose in the great throng
seround the throne it will not be difficult To
tell from what part of the earth they came
These reaped Sicilian wheat fields and
those picked Gotten from the pods. These
under blistering skies gathered tamarinds
and yams. Those crossed the desert on
camels, and those glanced over the snow,
drawn by Siberian dogs, and these MIXED
the goats far up on the Swiss crags. These
fought the walrus and white bear in regions
VI c'cl ioSoihb ouOW, anu IuOSe neaTu Tue
song of ferV-winged birds in African thick
cts. They We're white. They were black.
They were red. They We're copper color.
from all lands, from all ages. They were
plunged into Austrian dungeons They
passed through Spanish inquisitions. They
were confined in London Tower. They
fought with beasts in the amphitheater.
They were Moravians. They were
Waldenses. They were Albigenses. They
were Scotch Covenanters They were
Sandwich Islanders.
In this world men prefer different kinds of
government. The United States wants a
republic. The British Government needs to
be constitutional monarchy. Austria
wants absolutism. But when they come up
from earth from different nationalities they
Will prefer one great monarchy -King Jesus
ruler over it. And if that monarchy We're
dlsbanded and it were submitted to all the
hosts OF heaven who would rule then by the
unanimous suffrages of all the redeemed
Christ would become the president of the
whole universe. Magma Cnartas, bills of
right, houses of burgesses, triumvirates
congresses, MISUNDERSTANDING in the
presence Of Christ's scepter swaying over all
the people who have entered upon the great
glory. OH can you imagine it? What a
strange conmingling of tastes, of histories.
OF Municipalities, ''of all Nations and kindreds
and people and tongues"
Ny subject advances and tells YOU of
the dress of those in heaven. The object NJ
dress in this world is not only to veil the
body but to adorn it. The God who dresses
up the spring morning with blue ribbon of
sky around the brow and earrings of dew.