The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-02-12
SILENCE IN HEAVEN.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Strange Event.
Lessons Drawn From the Text - Great
Powers I'm Silence-Quiet Resignation
to Great Trouble-Glimpse of the
Glories of Heaven.

to Great Trouble-Glimpse of the
Giories of Heaven.
In late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage took his text from
Revelations viii 1: "There was silence
in Heaven about the spaae of half an
hour" DR.. Talmage said:
The busiest place in the universe is
Heaven. 1t is the center from which
all good influences start; it is the goal
at which all good results arrive. The
Bible represents it as active with wheels
and wings and orchestras and process
siOns mounted or charioted. But my
text describes a space when the wheels
ceased to roll and the trumpets to
sound and the voices to chant The
riders on the white horses refined in
| their chargers The doxologies were
hushed and the procession halted. The
hand of arrest was put upon all the
| splendors. 'Stop, Heaven" cried an
Omnipotent voice, and it stopped. For
thirty minutes everything cele stial
| stood still. There was silence in
| Heaven for the space of half an hour. {"
From all we can learn it is the only
time Heaven ever stopped. 1t does not
stop as other cities for the night, for
there is no night there. 1t does not
stop for plague, for the inhabitant
never says, 81 am sick" 1T does not
stop for bankruptcies, for its in
habitants never fail. 1t does not stop
for impossible streets, for there are no
fallen SHOWS or sweeping freshets.
What, then, stopped it for thirty min
utes? Prof. Stuart thinks it was at the
time of the destruction of Jerusalem.
Mr.. Lord thinks it was in the year 81,
between the close of the Diocletian
persecution and the beginning of the
wars by which Constantine gained the
throne. do not know when it was and
do not care when it was, but of the
fact that such an interregnum of sound
| took place, l am certain. ''rhere was
silence in Heaven for the space of half
an hour"
And, first of all, we may learn that
! God and all Heaven then honored si-
lence. The longest and widest domin
ion that ever existed is that over which
| stiffness was queen. For an eternity
| there hal not been a sound. Word
making was a later day occupation.
For unimaginable ages it was a mute
universe. God was the only Being,
and, as there was no one to speak to,
! there was no utterance. But that si-
! lence has been all broken up into
words, and it has become a noisy uni
verse Worlds in upheaval, worlds in
congelation, worlds in confagration,
worlds in revolution. II geologists are
right land l believe they are) there has
not been a moment of silence since
this world began its travels and the
crashings and the splittings and the
uproar and the hubbub are ever in
progress. But when among the SUI
pernals voice cried: "Hush!' and
for half an hour Heaven was
still, silence was honored. The
full power of silence many of
us have yet to learn. We are told that
when Christ was arraigned. "He an
swered not a word" That silence was
louder than any thunder that ever
shook the world. Oftimes, when we
are assailed and misrepresented. the
mightiest thing to say is to say moth
ing, and the mightiest thing to do, is to
do nothing. Those people who are al
ways rushing into print to get them
selves set right accomplish nothing but
their own chagrin. Silence! Do right
and leave the results with God. Among
the grandest lessons the world has ever
| learned are the lessons of patience
! taught by those who endured uncom-
| plainingly personal or domestic or
social or political injustice.
Eschylus, the immortal poet was
condemned to death for writing some
thing that offended the people. All
the pleas in his behalf were of no
avail, until his brother uncovered the
arm of the prisoner and showed that
his hand had been shot off at Salamis-
That silent plea liberated him. The
loudest thing on earth is silence if it be
of the right kind and at the right time.
There was a quaint old hymn, spelled
in the old style, and once sung in the
churches.
The race is not forever got
! BY him who fastest runs,
Nor the battel by those peopell
That shoot with longest guns,
NY friends, the tossing sea of Galilee
seemed most to offend Christ by the
| amount of noise it made, for He said to
it: BE still" Heaven has been
crowning kings and queens unto God
for many centuries, yet Heaven never
stopped moment for any such occur
renee, but it stopped thirty minutes for
| the coronation of silence. There was
silence in Heaven for the space of half
an hour"
Learn also from my text that Heaven
must be an eventful and active place,
from the fact that it could afford only
thirty minutes of recess There have
| been events on earth and in Heaven
that seemed to demand whole day or
whole week or whole year for celestial
consideration. If Grotius was right
and this silence occurred at the time of
the destruction of Jerusalem, that
scene was so awful and so prolonged
that the inhabitants of Heaven could
not have done justice to it in many
weeks.
After besiegement of the two fort
resses of Observation-Disclosures and Hip
picus-had been going on for long
while, Roman soldier mounted on the
shoulder of another soldier hurled into
the window of the temple firebrand.
and the temple was all afame, and
after covering many sacrifices to the
holiness of God, the building itself be-
came a sacrifice to the rage of man.
The hunger of the people in that city
during the besiegement was so great
that as some outlaws were passing
door way and inhaled the odor of food,