The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-10-05

grandeur. On. what grandeur OF apart
ments wher that Divine hand which
plunges the sea into blue, and the foil.
age into green, and sets the sunset on
fire, shall gather all the beautiful colors
of earth around Hir throne, and when
that arm which lifted the pillars of
Alpine rock, and bent the arch of the
sky, shall raise before our soul the
eternal architecture, and that hand
which hung with loops of fire the cur
tains of morning, shall prepare the up
holstery of our kingly residence!
A palace also means splendor of as
sociations. The poor man, the outcast
can not get into Windsor Castle. The
sentinel of the queen stands there and
cries Halt" as he tries to enter. But
in the palace of which | speak we may
all become residents, and we shall all
be princes and kings We may have
been beggars, we may have been out
casts, we may have been wandering
and lost, as we all have been, but there
, we shall take our regal power What
companionship in Heaven! To walk
side by side with John, and James, and
: Peter, and Paul. and Moses, and Joshua,
and Caleb, and Ezekiel, and Jeremiah,
and Micah, and Zachariah, and Wilber-
force, and Oliver Cromwell, and Philip
Dodridge and Edward Payson, and
, John Milton, and Elizabeth Fry, and
, Hannah More, and Charlotte Elizabeth,
and all the other kings and queens of
4 Heaven. Oh, my soul, what a compan-
ship!
palace means splendor of banquet.
!, There will be no common ware on that
table There will be no unskilled
} musicians at that entertainment. There
} will be no scanty supply of fruit or bev-
erage. There have been banquets
!, spread that cost million of dollars
J each, but who can tell the untold wealth
of that banquet? do not know wheth.
err Johns description of it is literal or
fgurative. A great many wise people
J tell me it is fgurative; but prove it. !
do not know but that it may be lit,
eral. l do not know but that
, there may be real fruits plucked
| from the tree of life. l do not know
but that Christ referred to the rea
, juice of the grape when He said that
i we should drink new wine in our
: Fathers kingdom, but not the intoxi-
eating stuff of this worlds brewing.
do not say that it is so; but have as
( much right for thinking it is so as you
, have for thinking the other way. At
) any rate it will be glorious banquet
, Hank! the chariots in the distance.
really believe the guests are coming
now. The gates swing open, the guests
dismount, the palace is filing, and all
the chalices flashing with pearl and
amethyst, and carbuncle are lift
| ed to the lips of the myriad ban
queters, while standing in robes OF
snowy white they drink to the honor of
/ our glorious King. "Oh, you say, that
is too grand place for you and for
, me-. No it is not. If spider, accord
ing to the text, could crawl up on the
j.. wall of Solomon's palace, shall not our
poor souls, through the blood of Christ,
, and shame, and finally reach the palace
( of the eternal King? where sin
f abounded grace shall much more
l abound that whereas sin reigned unto
; death, even so may grace reign
through Righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ, our Lord" One flash
r of that coming glory obliterates the
, sepulcher
| Years ago, with lanterns and torches,
, and a guide, we went down into the
Mammoth cave of Kentucky. You may
walk fourteen miles and see no sum
light 1t is a stupendous place. Some
places the roof of the cave is hundred
, feet high. The grottoes filled with
, weird echoes, cascades falling from
) invisible hight to invisible depth.
Stalagmites rising up from the
floor of the cave-ctalactites descend
ing from the roof Of the cave, joining
each other and making pillars of the AL
, mighty's sculpturing There are rosettes
of amethyst in halls of gypsum. As
the guide carries his lantern ahead of
you, the shadows have an appearance
supernatural and spectral. The dark
ness is fearful Two people, getting
lost from their guide only for few
: hours, years ago, were demented, and
for years sat in their insanity. You
. feel like holding your breath as you
walk across the bridges that seem tc
span the bottomless abyss.
, The guide throws his calcium light
= down into the caverns, and the light
rolls and tossess from rock to rock, and
from depth to depth, making at every
, plunge a new revelation of the awful
! power that could have made such a
, place as that. A sense of suffocatior
comes upon you as you think that you
are $50 feet in straight line from the
a sunlit surface of the earth. The
guide, after awhile, takes you
! into a what is called the "Sta,
chamber" and then he says to you
''Sit here" and then he takes the Ian.
tern and goes down under the rocks,
and it gets darker and darker, until the
, night is so thick that the hand an inch
q from the eye is undesirable. And
l then, by kindling one of the lanterns
Y and placing it in cleft of the
rock, there is a reflection cast or
a the dome of the cave, and there
are stars coming out in constella
I tions-a brilliant night heaven-and
, you fundamentally exclaim: "Beauti
fulr' Then he takes the lantern dowr
4 into the depths Of the cavern and wan
$ ders on. and wande-s off, until he come.
4 up from behind the rocks gradually
= and it seems like the dawn of the morn
!. ing, and it gets brighter and brighter