The Forrest City times., 1892-02-05
GLIMPSES OF HEAVEN
TALMAcE OPENS THE PORTALS
 OF ETERNITY.
A Beautiful Sermon from Reseiations-- There was Silence in Heaven for the Space of Half an Hour-Thirty Min utes in Heaven.

BROOKLYN, N. Y.. Jan 3i, 1s92.-Dr. Talmage has of late been preaching on texts of Scripture that seem to have been neglected and here is sermon on a beautiful text which probably was never before selected for dis course. Revelation s; I. "There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour"
 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 processions mounted, or charioted. but my text describes a space when the wheels cease to roll and the trum- pets to sound and the voices to chant The riders on the white horses refined in their chargers The doxologies were hushed and the processions halted. The hand of arrest was put upon all the splendors. "Stop. Hcaven!' cried an omnipotent voice, and it stopped. For thirty minutes everything celestial stood still .sThere was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. ,
 From all we can learn it is the only time heaven ever stopped. Itdoes 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: Fl am sick.n It does not stop for bankruptcies, for its inhabi- tants never fail. It does not stop for impossible streets, for there are no fallen snows nor sweeping freshets. What, then, stopped it for thirty min utes9 Grotius and Prof. Stuart think it was at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Mir. Lord thinks 1t was in the year s11, be- tween the close of the Diocletian per secution and the beginning of the wars by which Constantine gained the throne But that was all 8 guess, though a learned and brilliant guess. l do not know when it was and 1 dc not care when it was, but of the fact that such an interregnum of sound took place, I am certain. 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 ana 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 besiegements of the two fortresses of Jerusalem--An- tonic and Hippicus-had been going on for long while. Roman soldier mounted on the shoulder of another sol dier hurled into the window of the tenn pie firebrand, and the temple was all aflame, and after covering many sacri- fees to the holiness of God, the build ing itself became 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 a doorway and inhaled the odors of food, they burst open the door, threatening the mother of the house. hold with death unless she gave them some food, and she took them aside ana showed them that it was her own child she was ooking for the ghastly repast. Six hundred priests were destroyed on Mount Zion because the temple being gone there was noth- ing for them to do. Six thousand peo- pie in one cloister were consumed There were one million one hundred thousand dead. according to Josepbus. Grotius thinks that this was the cause of silence in heaven for half an hour. If MT. Lord was right and this silence was during the Diocletian persecu- tions. by which eight hundred and forty four thousand Christians sui fered death from sword and fire, and banishment and exposure, why did not heaven listen throughout at least one of those awful years? No! Thirty minutes The fact is that the celestial programme is so crowded with spec tacle that it can afford only one recess in all eternity and that for short space. While there are great choruses in which all heaven can join. each soul there has story of divine mercy peculiar to itself, and it must be a solo. How can heaven get through with all its reeitatives, with all its cantatas, with all its grand marches, with all it's victories? Eternity is too short to utter all the praise. In my text Heaven spared thirty minutes, but it will never again spare one minute In worship in earthly church. when there are many to take part, we have to counsel brevlty, but how will Heav. en get on rapidly enough to let the one hundred and forty four thousand get through each with his own story. and then the one hundred and forty-four million. and then the one hundred and forty-four billion, and then the one hundred and forty four triAion.
 -Ay sub sect also impresses me with the immortality of a half-hour. That half hour mentioned in my text is more widely known than any other per iod in the calendar of heaven. None of the whole hours of heaven are measured off, none of the years, none of the centuries. Of the millions of ages past, and the millions of ages to come, not one is especially measured of in the Bible. The half hour of my taxt is made immortal The onlv