The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1892-02-03

the right or wrong things you .
can do in thirty minutes are glorious or
baleful, inspiring or desperate. Look Q
Dut for the fragments Of time. They q
are pieces Of eternity. 1t was the half
hours between shoeing horses THAI
made Elihu Burritt the learned black-
smith, the half-hours between protes-
siona1 calls az a physician that made
Abercrombie the Christian philosopher,
the half-hours between his duties %
schoolmaster that made Salmon Z.
Chase chief justice, the half-hours De
tween shoe lasts that made Henry Wh.
son vice president of the United
States, the half-hours between canal
boats that made James A. Gar
field president The half-hour day
for good books or bad books, the half
hour q day for PRAYER or indolcnce,
the half hour day for helping others
or blasting others, the half-hour before
YOU 20 to business, and the half-hour
after you return from business, that
makes the difference between the
scholar and the ignoramus, between the
Christian and the infdel between the
saint and the demon, between triumph
and catastrophe, between Heaven ana
hell. The most tremendous things OF
your life and mine were certain hall
hous The half-hour when in the par
sonage of country minister l resolved
to become Christian then and there,
| the half-hour when decided to become |
preacher of the gospel; the half-hour
when | first realized that my son
was dead; the half-hour when stood
on the top Of my house in Oxford
street and saw our church burn; the
half-hour in which l entered Jeru-
salem, the half-hour in which / as
cended Mount Calvary; the half-hour in
which stood on Mars Hill; the half
hour in which the dedicatory 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, will be immortal l do not
query what you will do with the
twentieth century. l do not query what
you will do with 1899, but what. will
you do with the next half-hour. Upon
that hinges your destiny. And during
that some Of you will receive the gos-
pei and make complete surrender, and
during that others Of you will make
final and fatal rejection of the full and
free and urgent and impassioned offer
of life eternal. o, that the next half
hour might be the most glorious thirty
minutes of your earthly existence. Ear
back in history great geographer
stood with sailor, looking at a globe
tlrat represented our planet and he
pointed to place on the globe where
he thought there was an undiscovered
continent The undiscovered continent
was America The geographer who
pointed where he thought there
was new world was Martin
Behaim, and the sailor to whom he
showed it to was Columbus. This last
was not satisfied till he had picked that
gem out of the sea and set it in the
crown of the worlds geography. o, ye
who have been sailing up and down the
seas Of sorrow and sin, let me point out
to you another continent, yea, another
world, that you may yourselves find,
rapturous world, and that is the world
half hour of which we now study. o,
set sail for It! Here is the ship and
here are the compasses. In other
words, make this half hour, beginning
: at twenty minutes of twelve by my
watch, the grandest half hour OF your
life and become a Christian. Pray for a
regenerated spirit Louis XIV, while
walking in the garden at Versailles met
Mansarzl, the great architect, and the
architect took off Ids hat before the king
"Put on your hat" said the king. 'tfor
the. evening is damp and cold" And
Mansard, the architect, the rest of the
evening kept on his hat. The duke and
marquises standing with bare heads be-
fore the king expressed their surprise
at Mansard, but the king said: II can
make duke or marquis but God only
can make Mansard." And l say 10
you, my hearers, God only by His con-
victing and converting grace can make
q Christian, but he is ready this very
half hour TO accomplish it.
Again, my text suggests a way OF
studying Heaven so we can better un-
derstand II. The word eternity" that
we handle so much is an immeasurable
world. Knowing that we could not
understand that word, the Bible uses
1t only once. We say forever and
ever" But how long is forever and
ever?' I am glad that my text puts
under our eye Heaven for thirty min
utes And when you would see great
picture. you put sheet Of paper into
scroll and look through it, or Join your
forefnger to 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 time. Now, we have something
that we can come nearer to graspLng,
and 1t is a quiet heaven. When we dis
course about the multitudes of Heaven,
1t must be almost nervous shock 20
those who have all their lives been
crowded by many people, and who want
quiet Heaven: For the last thirty;five I
years have been much of the time In
crowds and under public scrrtiny and !
amid excitements, and have sometimes
thought for few weeks after reach |
Heaven would like to 20 down in some