Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-02-01
A VIEW OF HEAVEN
DR.. TALMAGE TELLS OF A THIRTY
MINUTES GLIMPSE or PARADISE.

= Sofn"' VI eho teAuthul put Olt Neg
lected Text from Revelation viii, 1,
"There Was silence IN Heaven sbou, the
Space OF Half au Hoar."
BROOKLYN, Jan. 3i-Dr Talmage has OF
late been preaching OH texts of Scripture
that seem to have been neglected. and here
Is sermon on Il beautiful text which prob.
ably WAS never before selected for a dis.
course. Revelation viii. l. "There was
silence In heaven about the space of hall
an hour"
The busiest place in the universe is
heaven. 1t Is the center from which all
good influences start 1t Is the goal at
which all good results arrive The Bible
represents it rs active with wheels and
wings and orchestras and professions
mounted or charioted. But my text de
scribes "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 dox-
ologies were hished and the professions
halted. The hand of arrest was put upon
all the splendors. stop heavenp cried
an omnipotent voice, and it stopped For
thirty minutes everything celestial stood
still. 'There was silence in heaven for
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 inhabtant never says, II am sick y
IL does not stop for bankruptcies, for its
inhabitants never fail. 1t does not stop
for impossible streets, for there are no
fallen SHOWS nor sweeping freshets. What,
then, stopped 1t for thirty mintuest Grotius
and Professor Stuart think it was at the
time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Mr.
Lord thinks 1t was in the year 81, between
the close OF the Diocletian persecution and
the beginning Of the wars by which Con.
stantine gained the throne. But that was
all a guess, though learned and brilliant
guess do not know when it was and
do not care when 1t was, but of the fact
that such an interregnum Of sound took
place, I am certain. There was silence in
heaven for half an hour"
HoNoRED SILENCE.
And first of all we may learn that God
and all heaven honored silence. The long
est and widest dominion that ever existed
is that over which stiffness was queen
For an eternity there had not been sound
World making was a later day occupation
For unimaginable ages it was Il mute uni
verse. God was the only being, and as
there was no one to speak to there was no
utterance But that silence has been all
broken up into worlds, and it has become
a noisJ universe. Worlds in upheaval,
worlds in congelation, worlds in connagra
ton, worlds in revolution If biologists
are right-and | believe they are-there
has not been moment of silence since this
IL a 4,
and the splttings and the uproar, and the
hubbub are ever in progress.
But when among the supernals voice
cried, "Hushl' 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 IKE answered not word" That
silence was louder than any thunder that
ever shook the world Oftentimes, when we
are assailed an d misrcpresentd, the might
lest thing to say is to say nothing, and
tn Jmightiest thing to do is to do nothing
Those people who are always rushing into
nrint to get themselves set SIGHT accom-
pIlah nothing but their own chagrin 81
I6ncel Do right and leave IT, results with
7od. Among the grandest lessons the
y has ever learned are the lessons of
nee taught by those who endured UNI
~ niningly personal or domestic or so
cial POLITICAL injustice.
StroS Ter than any bitter or sarcastic or
revengehll answer was the patient silence.
The famous DR. Morrison, Of Chelsea, ac-
complished as much by his silent patience
as by his pen and tongue He had asthma
that for twenty-five years brought him out
of his couch at two O'clock each morning
His four sons and daughters dead. The
remaining child by sunstroke made in
sane The afflicted man said, "At this
moment there Is not an inch of my body
that Is not filled with agony" Yet, he
was cheerful, triumphant, silent. Those
who were in his presence said they felt us
though they wereiin the gates of heaven.
Oh, the power Of patient silence Eschy
lus, the immortal poet, was condemned to
death for writing something that offended
the people. All the pleas in his behalf
were Of no avail, until his brother uncov-
cred the arm of the prisoner and showed
that his hand had been shot off at Salamis
That silent plea liberated him, The loud
est thing on earth is silence il it be of the
right kind and at the right time. There
was quaint old hymn, spelled in the old
style, and once sung in the churches;
Tho race Is not forever got
80 BY him who fastest runs,
Nor tho Ratto by those peopell
That shoot with the longest guns
NV friends, the tossing Sea of Gallee
seemed most to offend Christ by the
amount of noise it made, for he said TO it,
s.Be stillp' Heaven has been browning
kings and queens unto God for many cen
turtles, yet heaven never stopped a moment
for any such occurrence, but it stopped
thirty minutes for the coronation of ST.
lence. "There was silence in heaven for
half an hour"
HEAVEN AN ACTIVE PLACE.
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 de-
mand 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 fearful besiegement of the two
fortresses of Observation-Disclosures and Hip
picus-had been going on for a long while,
a Roman soldier mounted on the shoulder
of another soldier hurled into the window of
the temple firebrand, and the temple was
all aflame, and after covering many sacrif
ces TO the holiness of God, the building it.
self became sacrifice to the rage of man.
The hunger of the people in that city dur
ing the besiegement was so great that as
some outlaws were passing doorway and
inhaled the odors of food, they hurst open
the door, threatening the mother of the
household with death unless she gave
them some food, and she took them aside
and eho,vad them it was her own child she