Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-02-12


earthly churches, when there are many To
take part we have TO counsel brevlty, ouC
how will heaven get on rapidly enough 20
let the one hundred and forty-four tnou-
sand get through each with his own story,
and then the one hundred and forty four
million. and then the one hundred ana
fortv-four billion, and then the one hundred
and forty -four trillion.
toNot only are all the triumphs Of the past
be commemorated, but ali the triumphs
to come. Not only what we now know or
God but what we will know of Him after
everlasting study of the Deitic. LII my text
had said there silence IN heaven Tor
thirty DAYS | would not have been startled
at the announcement but it indicates thirty
minutes. Why. there will be SO many frlends
to hunt I'D: so many of the greatly good and
useful that we will want to see; so many OF
the inscrutable things OF earth we VIII neeo
explained: so many exciting earthly exPer-
fences we will want to talk over, 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 out to US the heroes and herolnes
that the world never fully appreciated-the
yellow fever and cholera doctors who died,
| not flying from their posts; the female
nurses who faced pestilence in the lazarettos:
the railroad engineers who stald at their
places in order to save the train though
they themselves persisted.
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
have lifted him into safety, put blind miner
who wanted to go to his sick child in the
bucket and jerked 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 mult1tudes
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 have no more half hours to spare.
Besides that. heaven is full OF children.
They the vast majority. No child on
earth that amounts to anything can be kept
quiet half an hour, and how are you going
to keep five hundred million of them quiet
| half an hour. You know heaven is much
more of place than it was when that recess
of thirty minutes occurred. Its population
has quadrupled, sextupled, centuple1.
Heaven has more on hand, more OF rapture
more of knowledge, more of interconmunica.
ton, more of worship.
There is not SO much difference between
Brooklyn sevenUy-fve years ago, when there
were few houses down on the East river
and the village reached up only to Sands
street, compared with what this great
city is nOw-yea, not so much difference be-
tween New York when Canal street was far
up town, and now when Canal street is far
down town, than there is difference be-
tween what heaven was when my text was
written and what heaven is now. The most
thrilling place we have ever been in is stupid
compared with that, and if we now have no
time to spare we will then have no eternity
to spare. Silence IN heaven only half an
hour.
Ny subject also impresses ma with the i'm
mortality of half hour. That half hour
iIO1rI
than any other period 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 measu1 ed off in the Bible. The
half hour of my text is made immortal. The
only part of eternity that was ever measured
| by earthly timepiece was measured by the
minute hand of my text.
Oh, the half hours! They decide every
thing. am not asking what you will do
with the years or months or days of your
life, but what of the half hours. Tell me
the history of your half hours and I will
tell you the story of your whole life earth
and the story of your whole life in eternity.
The right or wrong things you can think in
thirty minutes, the right wrong things
you 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.
1t was the half hours between shoeing
| horses that made Eiihu Burritt the learned
| blacksmith; the half hours between pro-
| fessional calls as q 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 day for good books or bad
books. the half hour day for prayer or in
| doIence. the half hour a day for helping
others or blasting others, the half hour be-
| fore you go to business and the half hour
| after your return from busness-that makes
| the difference between the scholar and the
| ignOramuS, between the Christian and the
| infidel, between the saint and the demon, be-
| tween triumph and catastrophe, between
! heaven and hell The most tremendous
| things of your life and mine were certain
| half hours.
The half hour when in the parsonage Of
| country minister I resolved to become a
| Christian then and there; the half hour
| when decided to become preacher Of the
| Gospel; the half hour when l first realized
| that my son was dead; the half hour when
I stood on the top Of my house in Oxford
| street and saw our church burn; the half
| hour in which I entered Jerusalem; the
| half hour in which I ascenced Mount Cal
| vary: the half hour 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 tho
name Of the exact years or most Of the i'm
| portant events of your existence, but those
| half hours, like the half hour of my text, will
| be immortal.
do not query what you viii do with the
| NJ l.