The Penn's Grove record., 1892-02-05

not lying from their posts, the female
nurses who faced pestilence In the lazarettos;
the railroad engineers who statd at their
places in order to save the train though
they themselves perishet.
Hubert Coffin, the master miner, who,
landing from the bucket at the bottom OF
the mine, just as he heard the waters rush
in, and when one jerk Of the rope would
lifted him into safety, put a blind miner
who wanted to go to his sick child in the
bucket and ierked the rope for him to be
pulled up, crying, TELL them the water has
burst in and We are probably lost, but we will
seek refuge at the other end Of the right gal
lery;" and then giving the command to the
other miners till they digged themselves so
near out that the people from the outside
could come to their rescue. The multitudes
Of men and women who got no crown on
earth We will want to see when they get
their crown in heaven. l tell you heaven
will IA no more half hours to spare.
Besides that. heaven Is full Of children.
They are in the vast majority. No child on
earth that amounts to anything can be kept
luiet half at hour, and how are you going
10 keep five hundred million Of them quiet
half al hour. You NOV heaven is much
more of a place than 1t was when that recess
IF thirty minutes occurred. Its population
mas quadrupled, sextupled, c%entupied.
eaven has more on hand, more OF rapture,
more of knowledge, more Of intercommunica.
ion, more of worship.
There is not so much difference between
Brooklyn seventy-ive years age, when there
were a few houses down on the East river
md the village reached up only to Sands
gtreet, as compared with what this great
,ity is now-yen, not SO much difference be-
tween New York when Canal street was far
ip town, and now when Canal street Is far
town town. than there Is . difference be-
ween what heaven was when my text was
written and what heaven is now. The most
thrilling place we rave ever been In is stupid
compared with that, and il we now have no
lime to spare we will then have no eternity
o.spare. Silence IN heaven only half an
hour.
My subject also impresses me with the i'm
mortality OF d half hour. That half hour
mentioned In my text Is more widely known
han any other period In the calendar of
leaven. None of the whole hours Of heaven
ire measured off, non of the years, none OF
The centuries. OF the millions Of ages past
md the millions of ages to come not one is
specially measured off in the Bible. The
,alf hour of my text is made immortal. The
,nly part of eternity that was ever measured
~ earthly timepiece was measured by the
minute hand of my text.
Oh, the half hoursI They decida every
;hing. an not asking what you will 10
with the years or months or days of your
life, but what of the half hours. Tell me
he history of your half hours and I will
ell you the story of your whole life on earth
and the story of your whole life In eternity.
The right or wrong things you can think in
thirty minutes, the right or wrong things
gouc can say in thirty minutes, the right or
wrong things you can do In thirty minutes
are glorious or baleful, inspiring or desper-
ate. Look out for the fragments of time.
They are pieces of eternity.
It was the half hours between shoeing
horses hat made Elihu Burritt the learned
blacksmith; the half hours between pro-
,essional calls as a physician that made
Abercrombie the Christian philosopher; the
half hours between his duties as school,
master that made Salmon p. Chase chief
Justice. 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 a day for goodbooks or bad
books, the half hour a day FOR prayer or in
dolence, the half hour o day for helping
others or blasting others, the half hour be-
fore you go to business and the half hour
after your return from business-that makes
the difference between the scholar and the
between the Christian and the
between the saint and the demon. be-
tween triumph and catastrophe between
heaven and hall. The most tremendous
things of your life and mine were certain
half hours.
The half hour when in the parsonage OF a
country minister l resolved to become q
Christian then and there; the half hour
when l decided to become a preacher of the
Gospel, the half hou when / first realized
that my son was dead; the half hour when
I stood on the top Of my house In Oxford
and saw our church burn; the half
hour In which / entered Jerusalem; the
half hour in which | ascenced Mount CAL
vary: the half our in which / stood on
Mars hill; the half hour in which the dedi-
catory 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 i'm
events of your existence, but those.
half hours, like the half hour of my text, will
be immortal.
= I do not query what you will do with the
twentieth century. / do not query what
you will do with 1893, but what will you do
with the next half hourf Upon that hinges
your destiny. And during that some of you
receive the Gospel and make complete
surrender, and during that others of you
win make final and fatal rejection Of the
hQu I uhA LEVI nh ltlIld6sluHou
of life eternal. oh, that the next half
Jour might be the most glorious thirty min
ties of your earthly existence.
Far back in history Q great geographer
food with a sailor looking at q globe that
.epresented our planet, and he pointed to a
,lace on the globe where he thought there
vas an undiscovered continent. That un-
discovered continent was America. The
r~eographer who pointed where he thought
Il $500 --A
the sailor TO whom he showed it was
Columbus. This last was not satisfied TIL he
picked that gem out Of the sea and set it
n the crowno Of the worlds geography. Oh,
10 who have been sailing mp and down the
seas of sorrow n sin, let me point
mt TO o another continent yea, another
world, that you may yourselves find a rap
urous world, and that Is the world a half
our OF which we now study. Oh, set sail
or It'll Here is the ship and here are the
ompaSes.
IN other words, make this half hour, be-
inning at twenty minutes to twelve by my
the grandest half hour Of your life
nd become a Christian. Pray for a regen-
rated spirit. Louis XIV, while walkinI in
he Garden at Versailles met Mansari, the
architect, and the architect took off
is hat before the king. "Put on your hat"
aid the king, ''for the evening is damp and
And Mansard, the archites, the rest
4 the evening kept on his hat. The dukes
nd marauises standing with bare heads be-
the king expressed their surprise at
but tue king said, II can make a
,nke or a marquis, but To- only can makes
iansard." And say to you. my hearers, God
nIy by His convincing underwriting grace
make a Christian, but He 10 ready this
Iery half hopr TO accomplish it.
Again nv text suggests a way of studying
"a ven so that we can better understand it.
he word i'eternity" that we handle SO
is an immeasurable word. Knowing
hat we could not understand that word the
Bible uses It only once. We say, Forever
nd ever ut how long is forever and
yerY' am glad that my text puts under
mr. ewes heaven for thirty minutes. As
ghen YOU would see a great picture you put
sheet OF paper into a scroll Int look
through il, or Join your forefinger to your
bumb and look through the circle between,
the picture becomes more intense. SO
his masterpiece of heaven by st. John Is
more impressive when we take only thirty
minutes of IL at a time. Now we have some
hing that we can come nearer to grasping,
nd Il is a quiet heaven. When we discourse
bout the multitudes OF heaven it must be
lmost a nervous shock to those who have
II their lives been crowded by many peo-
lie and who want a quiet heaven.
For the last thirty-hve years / / rave been
much OF the time in crowds and under public
and amid excitements, and I have
thought for q few weeks after I
ha.aan 1a.iIi Hka 20 No lo,n =