Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1893-01-26
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIyINEs SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject, "The Wall of Heaven.o

TEXT: "1he foundations Of the avau OF
me city tcsre FURNISHED aoith oil manner Of
precious stones. '-Revelation xxi, 19.
Shall be frank and tell you what are my
designs on you to-day? They are to make
you homesick for heaven: to console you con
corning your departed Christian friends by
giving you some idea of the briliancy of the
scenes In which they now commingle; to
give all who love thu Lord more elevated
Idea as to where they are going to pass the
most OF the years of their existence, and to
set all the indifferent and neglected to quick
ana immediate preparation, that they may
have it likewise
Yea, 1t is to induce many of our young
people to study volume of God that few
ever open, but without some acquaintance
with which it is impossible to understand
the Bible--i mean the precious stones, their
crystalizatloD. their powers of refraction,
tneir cleavage, their fracture, their luster,
their phosphoresence, their TRANSPARENCY.
tnelr infinity of color and shape, and what
tney had to do with the welfare and doom
OF families and the destiny of nations-aye.
na positive revocation they make of God
himself
NV text stands us in thu presence of the
most stupendous splenior of the universe.
and that is the wall of heaven and SAYS of
It's foundations that they are garnished with
all manner of precious stones All the
ancient cities had walls for safety, AMI
heaven has wall for everlasting safety.
on may say that wall made up of all
manner of precious stones is figurative, but
You cannot understand the force and sgnifi-
canoe OF the figure unless you know some
thing about the real structure and color-and
value OF the precious stones mentioned
Now, propose this morning, SO far as
the Lord may help me, to attempt to climb
not the wall of heaven, but the foundations
Of ccyx 70 ,o.,.
attempt to scale some OF the heights. We
shall only get part OF the way up but better
that than to stay down on the stupid level
where the most of us have all our lives been
standing We begin clear down at the bot.
tom and where the wall begins.
The first layer of the foundation reaching
ali around the city and for 1900 miles. is a
layer of jasper. Indeed there is more of
jasper in the wall of heaven than of any
other brilliant because it not only composes
part of the foundation, but makes up the
chief part OF the superstructure. The jasper
IS a congregation of many coiors 1t is
brown, 1T is yellow, it Is green, it is vermil-
ion, it is red, it is purple, it is black, and is
so striped with colors that much Of it is
called ribbon jasper.
1t is found in Siberia and Egypt, but it is
rare in most lands and of great value. for it
is SO hard the ordinary processes cannot
break it off from the places where it has
been deposited. The workmen bore holes
into the rock Of jasper, then drive into these
holes sticks Of dry birch wood, and then
saturate the sticks and keep them saturated
until they swell enough to split the rock, and
the fragments are brought out and polished
and transported and cut into canoes and
PUT behind the glass doors of museums.
The portraits of Roman emDerors were
cut into it. The finest intagiio ever seen is
In the Vatican museum, the head of Minerva
IN Jasper. BY divine arrangement jasper
adorned the breastplate Of ths high priest in
the ancient temple But its most significant
position Is where it glows and burns and
darkens and brightens and breaches from
the lowest stratum of the wall of heaven
Glad am that the very first row of stones
in the wall OF heaven is jasper of many COL
ors, and il you like purple it is purple and
If you like brown it is brown, aud if you like
green it is green, ami il you like ocher yell
low 1t is ocher yellow, and if you like ver-
million it is vermillion, and il you like
black it is black. 1t suggests to ma that
heaven is a place of all colors--colors of
opinion, coiors of creed, colors of skin, col.
ors of taste.
But we must pass up in this inspection of
the foundations OF the great wall of heaven,
and after leaving the jasper the next pre-
cious stone reached is sapphire, and it
sweeps around the city 1900 miles All lapi-
the Bible is what we now call lapis lazuli
Job speaks with emotion of 'sThe place of
sapphires, and God thought so much of tn is
precious stone that He put it in the breast
plate of the high priest commanding, .sThe
second row shall be an emerald, sapphire
and diamond
The sapphire is blue, but varies from
faintest hue to deepest ultramarine. 1t is
found pebble in the rivers of Ceylon. 1t
is elsewhere in compact masses. Persia and
Thibet and Burmah and New South Wales
and North Carolina yield exquisite speci-
mems. Its blue eye is seen In the valley OF
the Rhine. After burial of thousands of
years it has been brought to sight in Egyp-
tian monuments aud Assyrian cylinders.
At Moscow and st. Petersburg an / Con-
stantinope | have seen great masses Of this
sapphire, commonly called lapis lazu!. The
closer you study its veins the more enchant-
ing, and do not wonder that the sapphire
is called into the foun iation OF the wall OF
heaven. IL makes a strong stone for the
foundation, for it is the hardest of all min
erals except the diamond
Sapphire based on jasper, a blue sky over
fiery sunset. St. John points to it in Rev.
elation and says, The second, sapphire
and this suggests to me that though our
earth and all its furniture of mountains and
seas and atmospheres are to collapse and
vanish we will throughout all eternity have
IN some way kept the most beautiful OF
earthly appearances, whether you take this
sapphire Of the second layer as literal or
hgurative. The deep blue of our skies and
the deep blue OF our seas must not. will not,
be forgotten. II thousand years after the
world has gone to ashes you or | want to
recall how the earthly skies looked in sum
mer noon or the midocean in a calm, we
will have only to look at the second row OF
the foundation of the wall of heaven.
~ Id T. -
about It'll 1.-The second, sapphirep While
we are living in sight OF that wall spirits
who have come from other worlds and who
never saw our earth will visit us, and we
will visit them, and some time we will be in
conversation about this earth when it was
yet afoat and aswing, and Wa shall want to
tell them about how it looked at certain
times, and then it will be great object
lesson for all eternity, and we will say to
our visitor from some other world, as we
point toward the wall of heaven, at looked
like that stratum of foundation next to the
lowest" John, twenty-first chapter aud
nineteenth verse, The second sapphire"
A step higher aud you come to chal-
cedony, another layer in the foundation of
the wall and the running 1900 miles around
the heavenly city. Chalcedonyi Trans
lucent. A divine mixture OF agates and
opals and comedians. Striped with white
and gray Dashed Of pallor blushing into
red and darkening into purple. lce'aud and
the Hebrides hold forth beautiful specimens
of chalcedony.
But now we must make swift ascent to