The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-02-05
: mehts Of time, They are pieces Of

ments of time, They are pieces OF
eternity.
1t was the half hours between shoe
ing horses that made Elihu Burritt
the learned blacksmith, the half
hours between professional calls as q
! physician thatm made Abercrombie the
Christian philosopher, the half hours
between his duties as q schoolmaster
that made Salmon p, Chase chief jus
tice, the half hours between shoe
lasts that made Henry Wilson vice
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 hour a day for
prayer or Incidence, the half hour q
day for helping others or blasting
others, the half hour before you go
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 tho infdel, be-
tween the saint and the demon, be-
tween triumph and catastrophe, be-
tween heaven and hell The most
tremendous things of your life and
mine were certain half hours.
The half hour when in the parson-
age of a country minister | resolved
to become a Christian then and there;
the half hour when | decided to be,
come a preacher of the Gospel; the
half hour when | realized that my
son was dead; the half hour when ]
stood on the top of my house in Ok
ford street and saw our church burn;
the half hour in which | entered
Jerusalem; the half hour in which l
assembled 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. | do not
query what you will do with the
twentieth century, | do not query
what you will do with 1892, but
what will you do with the next half
hour? Upon that hinges your des-
tiny And during that some of you
will receive the Gospel 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.
Oh, that the next half hour might
be the most glorious thirty minutes
of your earthly existence. Far back
in history great geographer stood
with a sailor looking at a globe
that represented our planet, and he
pointed to a place on the globe where
he thought there was an undiscov-
cred continent. The undiscovered
rontinent was America The geog-
rapher who pointed where he
thought there was a new world was
Martin Behaim, and the sailor to
whom he showed it 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.
Oh, We, who have been sailing up
~nd down the rough seas of sorrow
and sin let me point out to you an
other continent, yea, another world,
that you may yourselves find a rap
tmous world, and that is the world a
half hour Of which we now study.
Oh, set sail for it Here is the ship
and here are the compasses In other
words, make this half hour, begin
ming 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 Mansard,
the great architect and the architect .
took off his hat before the king.
Put on your hat" said the king,
for the evening is damp and cold" /
And Mansard, the architect, the rest /
Of the evening kept on his hat, The
dukes and marquises standing with .
bare heads before the king expressed |
their surprise at Mansard, but the .
king said, Il can make duke or a .
marquis, but God only can make a
Mansard. And l say to you, my
hearers, God only by his convicting
and converting grace can make a
Christian, but he is ready this very
lalf hour to accomplish it.
A STUDY OF HEAVEN.
Again, my text suggests a way of .
studying heaven so that we can bet
Ter understand it. The word 'eterni-
y" that we handle so much is an
word. Knowing that
we could not understand that word,
5he Bible uses it only once. We say
Forever and ever. But how long
S Forever and ever?" am glad that
my text puts under our eye heaven
sOr thirty minutes. AS when you
VOID see a great picture, you put
sheet of paper into a scroll and look
through it, or join your forefnger to
your thumb and look through the
circle between, and the picture be-
comes more intense, so this master
piece of heaven by st. John is more
when we take only thirty
of it at time. \.
Now we have something that we
,an come nearer to grasping and it is
l quiet heaven. When we discuss
about the multitudes of heaven, it
must be almost a nervous shock to
hose who have all their lives been
crowded by many people and who
want q u11int hpavaO For tba IaCt