Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1892-02-06
REV. DR.. TALMAGH.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun.
day Sermon.


| ~ 10 the ctilteE from WHICH al ROO1 III
huences start 1t Is the goal at which all
good results arrive. The Bible represents it
as active with wheels and wings and orches.
| tras and professions mounted or charioted.
But my text describes a space when the
wheels ceased to roll, and the trumpets to
sound. and the voices to chant The riders
on the white horses reigned in their
! chargers. The doxologies were Lushed and
the professions halted. The hand Of arrest
was put upon all the splendors. stop.
heavenF' cried an omnipo;ent 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 a plague
for the inhabitant never says, 81 am SICK. !"
1t does not stop for bankruptcies for its in
habitants never fail. 1t does nor stop for
impossible streets for there are no fallen
SHOWS nor sweeping freshets. What, then,
stopped 1t for thirty minutess Grotius and
Professor Stuart think it was at the time Of
the destruction of Jerusalem. Mr.. Lord
thinks it was in the year 81. between the
close of the Diocletian persecution and tha
beginning of the wars by which Constantine
gained the throne. But that was all a guess,
though learned aud brilliant guess. do
I not know when it was and l do not care
when it was but OF the fact that such an in
terregnnm of sound took place. | am GER
tain. There was silence in heaven for half
an hour"
And first of all we may learn that Col
and all heaven honored silence. The longest
and widest dominion that ever existed is
that over which stiffness was queen. For
an eternity there had not been sound.
World making was later day occupation
For unimaginabe ages it was a mute uni.
! mo alv haip nd
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
noisy universe. Worlds in upheaval worlds
in congesation, worlds in conflagration
worlds in revolution. If biologists are right
---and | believe they are-there has not
been moment of silence since this world
began its travels, and the crashings, and the
splittings, and the uproar, and the hub
/ bub are ever in progress.
But when among the supernals a voice
cried, "Hushl' and for half an hour hea ven
was STILL silence was honored. The full
power OF silence many OF US have yet to
learn. We are told that when Christ was
| arralgned, HE answered not word.n That
silence was louder than any thunder that
ever shook the world. Oftentines, when we
are asSailed and misrepresented, the might
lest thing to say is nothing, and the mightiest
thing 70 do is nothing. Those people
who are always rushing into print TO get
themselves set right accomplish nothing but
their own chagrin. Silence! Do right and
leave the results with God Among the
grandest lessons the world has ever learned
are the lessons OF patience taught by those
who endured uncomplainingly personal or
domestic or social or political injustice.
Stronger than any bitter or sarcastic or
revengeful answer was the patient silence.
The famous DR.. Morrison, of Chelsea, &C.
k,nl
by bis 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 remain
ing child by sunstroke made insane. The
afflicted man said, "At this moment thers
is not an inch of my body that is not filed
with agony" Yet he was cheerful, trium-
plant, silent, Those who were in his pres
ence said they felt as though they were in
the gates of heaven.
Oh, the power of patient silencei 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 uncovered the
arm of the prisoner and showed that his
hand had been shot off at Salamis That
silent plea liberated him. The loudest thing
on earth is silence if it be of the right kind
and at the right time. There was quaint
old hymn, spelled in the old style, ami ones
sung i'll thu churches;
The race is not forever got
By him who fastest runs.
Nor the Battel by those peope
That shoot with the Longest guns
My friends, the tossing Sea OF Cables
seemed most to offend Christ by the amount
of noise it made. for He said to it, "Be still ~
Heaven has been browning kings and queens
unto God for many centuries, vet heaven
never stopped moment for any. such occur
renee, but it stopped thirty minutes for the
coronation of Silence "Hhere was silence
in heaven for half an hour"
Learn also from my text that heaven must
be an eventful an 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 a
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 aave done Justice to it
in many weeks.
After fearful besiegement OF the two for
tresses of Observation-Disclosures and Hippicus
had been going Oh for long while, a Roman
soldier mounted on the shoulder of another
soldier hurried into the win low of the tenn
pie a hrebranl, and the temple was all
ahame ana after covering many sacrifices
to the holiness OF God, the building itself
became sacrifice to the rage OF man. The
hunger o. the people in that city during the
besiegement was so great that as some out
laws were passing a doorway and inhaled
the odors OF fool, they burst open the door,
threatening the mother of the household
with death unless she gave them food and
she took them aside and shovel them it was
her own child she was cooking for the ghast-
| ly repast
Six hundred priests were dastroye on
| Mount Zion because the temple being gone
there was nothing for the to do. Six thou
| sand people in one cloister were co lsune 4.
/ There were one million oae hundred thou
sand dead, according to Jossphus Grotius
/ t inks that this was the cause of silence in
heaven for half an hour If Mr. Lord was
right and this silence wai during the Diocle-
tian prosecutions, By which eight hundred
and forty-sour thousand Christians suffered
death from sword and fire and punishment
and exposure, way did not heaven listen
throughout at least one of those awful yearsS
MOI Thirty minutes! The fact is thlt the
celestial programme is s5crowJed with spec
tacle that it can afford only one recess in all
! eternity and that for short space.
While there are great caorases in which
all heaven can Join, each soul there has a
story of divine mercy peculiar to itself and
1t must be a solo. How can heaven get
| through with all its recitatiyes with all
!
all It's victories? Eternity is too short to
utter ell the praise. In my text heaven
! spared thirty minutes, but it will never
again spare one minute. In worship in
earthly churches, when there are many to
take part, we have to counsel brevity, but
! now Will heaven get on rapidly enough to
Jet the one hundred and forty-four thou
sand 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, ami then the one hundred
and forty four trllion.
toNot only are all the triumpbs of the mast
ee commemorated, but all the triumphs
70 come. Not only what we now know Of
Tod, but what we will know of Him after
everlasting study of the Deific. II my text
had said t6ere was silence in heaven for
thirty days, L would not have been startled
at the announcements but it indicates thirty
minutes. Why. there will be so many friends
to hunt up; SO many of the greatly good aud
useful that we will want TO see; SO many of
the lnscrutabie things OF earth we will need
explained; so many exciting earthly exper-
fences we will want to talk ove~, and all the
other spirits and all the ages will want the
same, that there will be no more opportunity
for cessation.
How busy we will be kept in having
pointed QUO TO us the heroes au1 nero7r-s
that the world never fully appreciated-ths
yellow fever and cholera doctors who die1
not flying from their posts: the female
nurses who faced pestilence in the lazarettos:
the railroad engineers who staid at their
places IN order to save the train though
they themselves persisted.
Hubert Coffin, ths master miner who
landing from the bucket at the bottom of
the mine. just as he heard the waters rush