Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-11
HOLIDAY In HEAVEN.
A Splendid Spectacle the Like of
Which Is Never Seen Below.
THE THRONG AND THEIR RAIMENT.
Rspturous Music, Without q Plaintive
Strain, on Every Hand.
TALMAGE'S LATEST LONDON SERMON.

LONDON, July 10-The sermon selected
this week by DR.. Talmage for publication i!
from the text: Rev. vii: 9-10. "After thil
I beheld, and 10, great multitude which ne
man could number, of all nations, and kin.
dreds, 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, Saliva.
tion to our God which sitteth upon the
throne, and unto the Lamb"
It is impossible to come in contact with
anything grand or beautiful in art, nature
or religion without being profited and ele
waited. We go into the art gallery, and oul
soul meets the soul of the painter, and we
b. hear the hum of his forests aud the clash OF
conflicts, and see the cloud-blossoming OF
e the sky and the foam -blossoming of the
ocean; and we come out from the gallery
better 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 a 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 it's 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
lite, the thrones Of power, the comminglings
of everlasting love.
Real Gala Day in Heaven.
This account in my text gives picture of
heaven as it is on a 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 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, l think
my text speaks of gala day in heaven.
1t is a time 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 mil
Ienium. i know not what; but 1t does
seem to me in reading this passage as if it
were a holiday in heaven: after this l be-
held, and, 10, a great multitude, which no
man could number, OF all nations, and kim
dreds, ana people, and tongues, stood before
the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed in
white robes and palms in their hands: and
cried with loud voice, saying, Salvation to
our God which sitteth upon the throne and
unto the Lamb"
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 selling you OF the
numbers of those in heavenf l have seen q
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
1900 00O, 000.010 of souls in glory. 1 have no
taith In his estimate. / simply take the
plain announcement of the text-it is Ga
great multitude which no man can num-
ber."
Truly, q Magnificent Audience.
Every few years. in this country we take
census of the population and it is very easy
to tell how many people there are in a city
or in a 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
manv Baptists and Methodists and Episco-
palians and Presbyterians; of all the de-
nominations of Christians we could make
an estimate. Suppose they were gathered in
one great audience-room; how overwhelm-
ing the spectacleI
But it would give no idea of the great
audience-room of Heaven-the multitudes
that bow down and that lift up their hos
annas. Why they come from all the chapels,
from all the cathedrals, from all sects, from
all ages; they who prayed in splendid
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"
You may 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 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 aches and your heart faints, and ex-
hausted and overburdened you exclalm: II
cannot count them-a great multitude that
no man can number"
prrfr hi a ixvon aadf fall
their antecedents, "of all nations and
kindreds and tongues" Some of them
spoke Scotch, Irish, German, English,
Italian, Spanish, Tamil, Choctaw, Burmese.
The Most Cosmopolitan of Places.
These reaped Sicilian wheatffelds ana
those picked cotton 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 lar up on the Swiss crags These
fought the walrus and white bear in regions |
OF everlasting snow. and those heard the |
songs of fiery-winged birds in African |
thickets. They were white. They were |
black. They were red. They were 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 anIphitheater. |
denses They were Albigenses. They were
Scotch Covenanters. They were Sandwich |
Islanders.
In this world men prefer different kinds of
government. The United States want a re-
public. The British Government needs to
be constitutional monarchy. Austria
wants absolutism: But when they come up
from earth from different nationaIities they
will prefer one great monarchy-King Jesus
ruler over it. And if that monarchy were
disbanded, and it were submitted to all the
fnfh hGux- rryl,.1 rl,<,
unanimous suffrages of all the redeemed.
Christ would become the president of the
whole universe. Magma Chartas bills of
right, houses of burgesses trium-
virates, congresses, parliamentsWnothin in
the presence of Christ's scepter, swaving
over all the people who have entered upon
that great glory. Oil can you imagine it?
What a strange commingling of tastes. of
of nationalities, "of all nations and
klndreds and people and tongues"
The Robes OF the Heavenly Throng.
My subject advances and tells you of the
dress OF those in heaven. The object of
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
drops hung from tree branch, and mantle of
crimson cloud flung over the shoulder, and
the violeted slippers of the grass for her
feet-I know that God does not despise
beautiful apparel. Well, what shall we wear
In heaven?
81 saw a great multitude clothed in white
robes" 1t is white! In this world we had
sometimes to have on working apparel
Bright and lustrous garments would be
out of place sweltering amid
forges, or mixing paints, or plastering cell
ngs, or binding books. In this world we
must have the working day apparel some
times and We care not how coarse it is. 1t
: appropriate; butwhen all the toll of earth
IS past and there is no more drudgery and
no more WEAKNESS, we shall stand before
The throne robed in white
On earth we sometimes had to wear mourn
ng apparel. Every second of every minute |