The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1892-02-10

earthly churches when there are many to
take part. we have to counsel brevity, but
how will heaven get on rapidly enough to
let the one hundred and forty-four thou
sand get through each with his own story,
| end then the one hundred and forty-four
million, and then the one hundred and
forty-four billion, and then the one hum
dred and forty-four trillion-
TRIUMPHS OF ALL TIME TO BE CoMMEAfO-
RATED.
Not only are all the triumphs of the past
to be cOmmemorated, but all the triumphs
to come. Not only what we now know Of
| God, but what we will know of him after
everlasting study of the Deific. If my text
had said there was silence in heaven for
| thirty days, | would not have been startled
at the announcement, but it indicates
thirty minutes. Why, there will be SO
many friends to hunt up; so many of the
greatly good and useful that we will want
to see; so many of the inscrutable things
of earth we will need explained; so many
exciting earthly experiences we will want
to talk over, and all the other spirits and
all the ages will want the same, that there
viii be no more opportunity for cessation
How busy we Will be kept in having
| pointed out 70 US the heroes and heroines
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 lazaret-
tos; the railroad engineers who staid st
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 gallery" 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
tell you heaven will have 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
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 re-
cess of thirty minutes occurred. Its popu-
lation has quadrupled, sextupled, CEN
tupled. Heaven has more on hand, more
of rapture, more of knowledge, more of in
accommodation. more of worship
! There is not so much difference between
| Brooklyn seventy-fve years ago, when
there were few houses down on the East
river and the village reached up only to
Sands street, as compared with what this
great city is nOw-yea, not so much differ
ence between New York when Canal street
was far up town and now when Canal
street is far down town, than there is diff
ference between 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. ST.
lence in heaven only half an hour
HALF HOURS IMMORTALITY.
Ny subject also impresses me with the
immortality of a half hour. That half
hour mentioned in my text is more widely
known than any other period in the calen-
dar of heaven. None of the whole hours of
heaven are measured of, 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 measured 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 hoursl They decide every
thing. l am not asking what you viii 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 will
tell you the story of your whole life ON
earth and the story of your whole life in
can think in thirty minutes, the right or
wrong things you can say in thirty min
utes, the right or wrong things you can do
in thirty minutes are glorious or baleful,
inspiring or desperate. Look out for the
fragments of time. They are pieces of
eternity.
1t was the half hours between shoeing
horses that made Elihu Burritt the learned
blacksmith; the half hours between pro-
fessioual calls as a physician that made
Abercrombie the Christian philosopher;
the half hours between his duties as school
master that made Salmon 2. 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 good books or
bad books, the half hour day for prayer
or incidence the half hour a day for help
ing others or blasting others, the half hour
before you 90 to business and the half hour
after your return from business-that
makes the difference between the scholar
and the ignoramus, between the Christian
and the infidel, between the saint and the
demon, between triumph and catastrophe,
between heaven and hell The most ire
mendous 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
Christian then and there; the half hour
when | decided to become preacher of the
Gospel; the half hour when first realized
that my son was dead the half hour when
stood on the top of my house in Oxford
street and saw our church burn; the half
hour in which | entered Jerusalem; the
half hour in which | assembled Mount Cal
vary; the half hour in which l 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
important events of your existence, but
those half hours, like the half hour of my
text, viii be Immortal.
L 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 hour9 Upon that