Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-02-01
"STOP, HEAVEN !"
Continued from Eighth Page.

Continued from Eighth Page.
and the millions of ages to come, not one is
especially measured off in the Bible. The
half hour Of my text is made immortal.
The only part Of eternity that was ever
measured by earthly timepiece was meas
ured by the minute hand of my text. Oh,
the half-hours! They decide everything
! am not asking what you will do with the
years or months or days of your life, but
what of the haf-hOurs ? Tell me the his
tory Of your half-hourS, and / Will tell you
the story Of your whole life on earth and
the story of your whole life in eternity.
The right or wrong things you can think In
thirty minutes, the right or wrong things
you can say in thirty minutes, the
right or wrong things you can do
in thirty minutes are glorious or bale
FIJI, inspiring or desperate Look out for
tine fragments OF time. They are
pieces Of eternity. 1t was the half-hours
between shOeing horses that made Elihu
Burritt the learned blacksmith, the half
hours between professional calls as ply
stefan that made AberCrOmbie the Christian
philosopher, the half-hOurs between his
duties as SchOOl-maSter that made Salmon
2. Chase chief justice, the half-hours be-
tween shoe lasts that made Henry Wilson
wee president of the United States, the
half-hOurs between canal boats that made
James A. Garfield president. The half
hour day for good books or bad books;
the half-nOur day for PRAYER or
incidence; the half-hour day for helping
others or blasting others; the half-hour be-
fore you 90 to business and the half-hour
after your return from business; that
makes the differences between the scholar
and the iEnOramus, between the Christian
and the iufdel, between the saint and the
demon, between triumph and catastrophe,
between heaven and he'll. The most ire
m ETnF
certain halt-hours. The half-hOur when in
tine parsonage Of a country minister l re-
solved TO become 4 Christian then and there;
the half-hUur when / decided to become
Il preacher of the Gospel; the half-hour
when ! first realized that my son was dead;
the haIf-hour when I stood on the top of my
house in Oxford street and saw our church
burn; the haif-hour in which 1 entered Je-
rusalem; the half-hOur in which assembled
Mount Calvary; the hali-hOur in which !
stood on Mars Hill; the half-hOur in which
the deGiCatOry prayer of this temple was
made and about ten or fifteen other half
hours are the chief times Of my life.
You may forget the name of the exact
years or most Of the important events of
your existence, but those half hours, like
the half hour of my text, viii be immortal
/ do not query what you will do with the
Twentieth century; l do not query what
Won viii do with 1892. but what YOU viii do
your destiny. And during that some Of you
will receive the Gospel and make complete
surrender, and during that others Of you win
make final and fatal rejection of the full and
free and urgent and impassioned offer of life
eternal. Oh, that the next half hour might
be the most glorious thirty minutes Of your
earthly existence. Far back in history a
great geographcr stood with sailor, look
ing III a globe that represented our planet,
and he pointed to a place on the globe where
he thought there was IN undiscovered con-
tiucnJ. The undiscovered continent was
America. The geOgrapner who pointed
where he thought there was new world
was Martin Behaim, and the sailor TO whom
ne showed it was Columbus. This last was
not satisfied until he mad picked that gem
out of the sea and set it in the crown Of the
worlds geography. Oh, We, who have been
sailing up and down The rough seas Of sOr-
row and sin, let me point out to you an
other continent yea, another world, that
You may yourselves find 4 rapturOUS world,
and that IS the world half hour of which
we now study. Oh, set sail for ii! Here IS
the ship and here are the cOmpasSeS.
In other words, make this half hour, be-
ginning at twenty minutes OF twelve by my
watch. the CrauGCst half hour of your life
and become a Christian. Pray for a re-
generated spirit Louis XVI, while walk
Ing in the garden 1T Versailles, met Man
sard. the great architect, and the architect
took of his hat before the king. Put on
Your hat said the king, "for the evening
IS damp and cold And Mausard, the
architect, the rest of the evening kept on
his hat. The dukes and marQuiSeS stand
ing with bare heads before the king ex-
pressed their surprise at Alansard, but the
king said: Il eau make a duke or Q mar
quis, but God only can make ! MaGSard."
And l say 10 you, my hearers, God only by
his COnyictiug and converting grace can
make d Christian, but he is ready this half
hour 20 accomplish it.
Again my text suggests way Of study
ing heaven so that we en- better under
stand IL. The word eternity that we
handle so much IS an unreasonable word.
Knowing that we could not understand that
word the Bible uses II only once. We say,
"For ever and evern But how long is
For ever and eVGr.' ] am glad that my
text puts under our eye heaven for thirty
minutes. As when YOU would see great
picture yOu put q sheet Ufpaper into scroll
and look through IL or join your fOroiinger
20 your thumb and look through the circle
between and the picture becomes more
Intense, so this masterpiece of heaven by
St John is more impressive when we take
only thirty minutes of it at one time. Now,
we have something that we can come
nearer 10 graspiHg, and II is n quiet heaven.
When we discourse about the mulutudes
of heaven, 1t must be almost a nervous
shock to those who have all their lives been
crowded 10y many people, and who want Z
guiet heaven. For The last thirtv-tive
years I have been much OF the time in
crowds and under public scrutiny and amid
sxcitements, and l have sometimes thought
for a few weeks after ! reach heaven /
would like TO go down in some quiet part of
the realm, with I few friends, and for
little while try comparative solitude. Then,
there are those whose hearing is so delicate
that they get no satisfaction when you de-
scribe the crash of the eternal orchestra,
and they feel like saying, rs q good woman
In Hudson, N Y, said, after hearing me
speak of the mighty chorus sof heaven:
THAT must be 4 great heaven, but what
will become of my poor head2" Yes, this
half-hour OF my text is still experience.