The Bossier banner., 1892-04-07
SILENCE IN HEAVEN.
DR.. Ta'mage Talks About the I'M
mortality Of Half Hour.
The Importance of the Fragments of
Time That are Wasted-The Re-
wards Awaiting the Re-
deemed i'm Heaven.

DIR. Talmage, in recent sermon,
talked to his congregation of the i'm
taking for his text:
There was silence in Heaven about the space
OF half an hour.-Revelation viii, l.
The busiest place i'll the universe is
Heaven. 1t is the center from which
all good inf aences start; it is the goal
which all good results arrive. The BIZ
BILE represents it as active with wheels
and wings and orchestras. and process
sions mounted or charioted. But inv
text describes a space when the wheels
ceased to roll and the trumpets to sound
and the voices to chant. The riders on
the white horses reined in their charg-
ers. The doxologies were hushed and
the professions halted. The hand of
arrest was put upon all the splendors
stop, Heaven" cried an omnipotent
voice, and it stopped. For thirty min
utes everything celestial stood still.
There was silence in Heaven for the
space of half an hour"
From all we can learn it is the only
time Heaven ever stopped. 1t does not
stop as other cities for the night, for
there is no night there 1t does not
stop for plague, for the inhabitant
never SAYS: 81 am sick" 1t does not
stop for banlSrupts, for it's inhabitants
never fail. 1t does not stop for i'm
passable streets, for there are no fallen
SHOWS nor sweeping freshets What,
then, stopped it for thirty minutes?
Crotius an Prof. Stuart think it was at
the time of the destruction of Jeru-
salem. Mr.. Lord thinks it was in the
year s11, between the close of the Dio-
cletlan persecution and the beginning
OF the wars by which Constantine
gained the throne. But that was all a
guess, though a learned and brilliant
guess. | do not know when it was and
do not care when it was, but of the
1act that such an interregnum of sound
took place, / am certain. There was
silence in Heaven for the space of half
an hour"
And, first of all. we may learn that
God and all Heaven then honored
silence. The longest and widest domin-
ion that ever existed is that over which
Stiffness was queen. For an eternity
there had not been sound. World
making was later-day occupation
For unimaginable ages it was a mute
universe God was the only being, and,
as there was no one to speak to there
was no utterance. But that silence has
oeen all broken up into worlds, and it
has become noisy universe Worlds
IN upheaval, worlds in congelation,
worlds in confiagration, worlds in rev.
olution. If geologists are right land |
believe they are) there has not been a
moment of silence since the world be-
gan It's travels and the crashings and
the 'spllttings and the uproar and the
l bubbub are ever in progress. But
when among the supernals voice
cried: "Hush!'' and for half an hour
Heaven was still, silence was bonored.
The full power of silence many of us
have yet to learn. We are told that
when Christ was arraigned: 'He an
swered not word" That silence was
louder than any thunder that ever
shook the world. Ofttimes, when we
are assailed and misrepresented, the
mlghtlest thing to say is to saw
nothing, and the mightiest thing to do
is to do nothing. Those people who
are always rushing into print to get
themselves right accomplish nothing
but their own chagrin. Silence, Do
right and leave the results with
God. Among the grandest lessons the
world has ever learned are the lessons
of patience taught by those who en-
dured uncomplainingly personal or
domestic or social or political inius
tice. Stronger than any bitter or sar-
castle or revengeful answer was the
patient silence. The famous DR.. Nor
rlson. of Chelsea, accomplished as much
by his silent patience as by his pen and
tongue. he had asthma that for twen-
ty-fve years brought him out of his
couch at two o'clock each mornino
His four sons and daughters dead.
The remaining child by sunstroke
made insane. The afflicted man said.
AT this moment there is not an inch
of my body that is not filled with
agony" Yet, he was cheerful. triumpb.
ant, silent. Those who were in his
presence said they felt as though thew
were in the gates of Heaven. Oh. the
power of patient silence! Eschylus, the
immortal poet. was condemned to
death for writing something that Of
fendeu the people. All the pleas in
his behalf were of no avail. until his
brother uncovered the arm of the pris-
oLer and showed that his hand had
been shot off at Salamis. That silent
plea liberated him. The loudest thing
on earth is silence if it be of the RIGHT |
kind and at the right time There was
a quaint old hymn, spelled in the old
style, and once sung in the churches:
The race is not forever got
By him who fastest runs:
Nor the battel by those peopell
That shoot with the longest guns
My friends, the tossing sea of Galilee
seemed most to offend Christ by the
amount of noise it made, for He said
to it: "Be stillr' Heaven has been
browning kings and queens unto God
sor many centuries. yet Heaven never