News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-07-14
News and Citizen.
MORRISVILLE and HYDE PARK.
Thursday, July II. 1892.
THE HEAVENLY HOST.
DR.. TALMAGE breaches IN LONDON
ON THE ARMY OF THE REDEEMED.

YIN ! TIE AFtm1 UT TIE nECGC"GO'
He Cannot Agree with DIR. Dick That
Men viii Study Mathematics in Heaven.
He Looks Forward to a Heaven of Light
and Music, JOY and Rest.
LONDON. July 1O.-Dr. Talmage is
spending a very busy season in England
Not only in the London churches, but
in the provinces enormous crowds have
gathered to hear the eloquent American
preacher. The great Shoreditch Taber-
nacle in the east of London, where Rev.
w. Cuff breaches, was thronged almost
to suffocation, and the large Congrega-
tional church in the Hackney district
could not hold half the people who tried
to get into it, though it was on a Mon
day evening that DIR. Talmage preached
there. Outside London the eagerness to
hear him has been quite as intense.
In Liverpool, Manchester, Noting
ham, Crewe and Han1ey no church
could be found large enough to accom-
modate the audiences, and DR.. Talmage
preached in the halls in which the great
political conventions are held, and the
most. Since his arrival he has preached
seven times each week. The sermon Sc
lected for publication this week is from
the text, Revelation vii, 8, 10, ''After this
beheld, and 10! 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 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.
1t is impossible to come in contact with
anything grand or beautiful in art,
nature or religion without being profted
and elevated We go into the art gal
lery 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 blossoming 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 go
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 long stress OF
weather, rolls and rocks and surges a
great while before it comes back to its
ordinary calm.
On the same principle it 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 1 could bring
heaven from the list of intangibles and
make it seem to you as it really is-the
great fact in all history, the depot of all
ages, the parlor of Gods universe.
THE HEAVENLY CONGREGATION.
This account in my text gives a pic
ture of heaven as it is on holiday.
Now if a 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 boom
ing, he would have been very foolish to
suppose that that was the ordinary ap-
pearance of the city. While heaven is
always grand and always beautiful, |
think my text speaks of gala day in
heaven.
1t is a time of great celebration-per-
haps of the birth or the resurrection of
Jesus, perhaps of the downfall of some
despotism, perhaps because of the rush
ing in of the millennium. l know not
what, but it does seem to me in reading
this passage as if it were a holiday in
heaven: After this l beheld, and loi 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
with white robes, and palms in their
hands, and cried with a loud voice, say
ing, Salvation to our God which stitch
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb"
shall speak to you of the glorifed in
lheaven-their number, their. antece-
dents, their dress, their symbols and
their song. But how shall / begin by
telling you of the numbers of those in
heaven? have seen curious estimate
by an ingenious man who calculates
how long the world was going to last,
and how many people there are in each
generation, and then sums up the whole
matter, and says he thinks there will be
twenty-seven trillions of souls in glory.
/ have no faith in his estimate. l sim
ply take the plain announcement of the
text-it is ga 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 city or 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 de-
nominations of Christians-how many
Baptists and Methodists and Episcopa-
lians and Presbyterians; of all the de-
nominations of Christians we could
make an estimate.
Suppose theya were gathered in one
great audience room, how overwhelm-
ing the speetaclel But it 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
ages. 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 high sprung arch-"a great
multitude that no man can number"
THE ARMY OF THE REDEEMED.
j One of the most impressive things
have looked upon is an army. Standing
upon hillside you see forty thousand
or fifty thousand men pass along. You
can hardly imagine the impression if
you have not actually felt it. But you
may take all the armies that the earth
has ever seen-the legions under Sem
nacherib and Cyrus and Caesar, Xerxes
and Alexander and Napoleon, and all
our 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 accumu
lated host from all ages seems like q
half formed regiment compared with
the great array of the redeemed.
l 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. II
seemed as though there was no end te
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
sands. until / put down the field glass
and say, 81 cannot estimate tia 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