The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-07-22
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Great Army OF Redeemed ir
Heaven
A Multitude the Extent Of which No MAJ
Car Tell-An Nations. An Tongues
REORGANIZATION SYM
bols and Songs.

HIS vast congregation at home. 1t Is
based on the text:
After this beheld. and 10, a great multftude
which no man can number, Of all nations, and
kindreds, and people. and tongues stood before
the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed in
white robes. and palms in their hands. and
cried with n loud voice, saying, Salvation to
our God which stitch upon the throne. and
unto the Lamb.-Rsv VII, s-10.
II Is impossible to come in contact
with anything grand or beautiful in
art, nature or religion without being
profited and elevated. 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 ud-blossoming of the
sky and the foam-blossoming Of the
ocean; and we come out from the gal
lery better men than when we went in.
We go into the concert of music and
arc lifted into enchantment; for days
after our soul seems to rock with a
very tumult of joy, as the sea. after a
long stress of weather, rolls and rocks
and surges a great while before it
comes back to its ordinary calm.
On the same principle II is profitable
TO think of Heaven, and look off upon
that landscape of joy and light which
st. John depicts; 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 intangibles and
make il seem to you as it really is-the
great fact in all history, the depot of
all ages, the parlor of Gods universe.
This account in my text gives a pict-
ure of Heaven as il is on holiday. Now,
If man came to New York for the
first time on the day that Kossuth
arrived from Hungary, and he saw. the
arches lifted and the flowers flung in
the streets, and he heard the guns
booming, he would have been very fool
ish to suppose tina that was the ordin-
airy appearance of the city. While
Heaven is always grand and always
beautiful, i think my text speaks of
gala day in Heaven.
It is a tire of great celebration
perhaps of the birth or the resurrection
of Jesus; perhaps of the downfall of
some despotism; perhaps because of
the rushing in of the millennium /
know not what, but il does seem to me
in reading this passage as if il were a
holiday in Heaven: "Aftert this beheld,
and, 10. a great multitude, which no
man could number, of all nations, and
kindreds, and people, and tongues.
stood before the throne and before the
Lamb, clothed in white robes, and
palms in their hands, and cried with a
loud voice, saying: Salvation to our
God which stitch upon the throne and
unto the Lamb"
shall speak to you of the glorified in
Heaven, their number, their antece-
dents, their dress, their symbols and
their song. But how shalLI begin by
telling you of the numbers of those in
Heaven? ] have seen a curious esti-
mate by an ingenious man who calcu-
1etes how long the world was going to
last, and how many people there are in
each generation, and then says he
thinks there VIII be twenty-seven tril-
lions of souls in glory. have no faith
in his estimate. / simply take the
plain announcement of the text-it is
"a great multitude, which no man can
number"
Every few years, in this country, we
take a census of the population, and it
is very easy to tell how many people
there are in the city or in nation; but
who shall give the census of the great
nation of the saved? 1t is quite easy to
tell how many people there are in
different denominations of Christians
how many Baptists and Methodists
and Episcopa1ans and Presbyterians;
of all the determinations of Christians
we could make an estimate. Sup
pose they were gathered in one great.
audience room; how overwhelming the
spectaclel But il would give no idea of
the great audience-room of Heaven
the multitudes that bow down and that
lift up their hosannas. Why, they
come from all the chapels, from all the
cathedrals, from all sects, from all
hges; they who prayed in splendid
liturgy, and those who in broken sem
fences uttered the wish of broken
hearts-from Grace church and Sailors
Bethel, from under the shapeless rafters
and from under the high-sprung ARCH
"a great multitude, that no man can
number. 49, -
One of the most impressive things /
have looked upon is an army. Stand
thousand or fifty thousand meR
inc the impression if you have no {,
actually felt it. But you may take
all the armies that the earth has ever
seen-the legions under SennacheriED
and Cyrus and Cesar, Xerxes and Alex
nnder and Napoleon and all our modern
forces and put them in one great array,
and then on some swift steed you ma.f
ride along the line and review the
troops; and that accumulated host
from all ages seems like half-formeti
regiment compared with the great az
ray of the redeemed.
stood one day at wiIliamsport and
saw on the opposite side of the Poto-
mac the forces coming down, regiment
after regiment, and brigade after bril-
gade- 1t seemed as though there was
no end TO the procession But now let
me take the ield-glass of St. John and
look off upon the hosts of Heaven
thousands upon thousands, ten thou
sand times ten thousand, one hundred
md forty and four Thousand, and thou
sands Of thousands, until I put down
the feld-glass and say: ST can not es-
innate it--a great multitude that no
man can number"
You may tax your imagination. and
torture your ingenuity, and break down
your powers Of calculation in attempt
ing TO express the multitudes of the re-
leased from earth and the enraptured
of Heaven. and talk of hundreds of
hundreds Of hundreds; of thousands
Of thousands Of thousands; Of millions
Of millions Of millions; until your head