Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1893-02-03
REV. DIR. TALMAGB.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun.
day Sermon.
suhJ.ct; "The Wall of Heaven"

TEXT: "The foundations Of the UaU OF
the citu tcsre qarnished ,Oith all manner oj
precious stones. .n-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-
csrning your departed Christian friends oy
giving you some idea of the brilliancy OF the
scenes in which they now conmingle; 10
give all who love the Lord more elevator
idea as to where thay are going to pass the
most of the wears of their existence, AMI to
set all the indifferent and neglected to quick
and immediate preparation, that they may
have it likewise.
Yea, it is to induce many of our young
people to study a volume of God that few
ever open, but without some acqua intance
with which it is impossible to understand
the Bible-I mean the precious stones. their
crystalizatioD, their powers of refraction,
their cleavage. their fracture. their luster,
their phosphoresence, their transparency,
their intinity of color and shape, and what
they had to DO with the welfare and doom
of families and the DESTINY Of nations-aye,
the positive revelation they make OF God
Himself
NV text stands US in the presence of the
most stupenlous splen Tor OF the universe,
and that is tho wall of heaven, AMI says OF
its foundations that they are garnished with
all manner Of precious stones. All the
ancient cities had walls for safety, and
heaven has wall for everlasting safety
You may say that wall made up of all
manner of precious stones is figuratlve, but
you cannot understand the force and signii-
canoe OF the figure unless ycu 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 the wall, and ask you to join me in the
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
all around the city and for 1907 miles, is a
layer OF Jasper In lee 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 uD the
chief part Of the superstructure. The jasper
is a congregation of many coiors. 1t is
brown, it is yellow, it is green. it is vermi'-
ion, it is red, it is purple it is black, and is
so striped with co.orS 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 canuot
break it off from t1e places where it has
been deposited The workmen bore holes
into the rock of jasper, then drive into these
holes sticks of dry birch woot, 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
4 froncrOrfa1 nd nf1t infn and
put behind the glass doors of museum.
The portraits of Roman emperors were
cut into it, The finest inta Clio ever seen is
in the Vatican museum, the head of Minerva
in jasSer By divine arrangement jasper
adorned the breastplate of the 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 Ct stones
in the wall OF heaven Is jasper of many COL
ors, and if you like purple it is purple, and
if you like brown it is brown. and if you like
green it is green, and if you like ocher yell
low it is ocher yellow, and if you like ver
million it is vermillion, and il you like
back it is black. 1t suggests to me- that
heaven is a place OF all colors-colors Of
opinion, co.ors 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-
daries agree in saying that the sapphire of
the Bible is what we now call lapis lazuli
Job speaks with emotion of The place of
sapphires" and God thought so much of th is
precious stone that He put it in the breast
plate Of the high priest commanding. "The
second row shall lie 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. It
is elsewhere in compact masses. Persia and
Thibet and Burmab and New South Wales
and North Carolina yield exquisite speci-
mems. It's 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 and Assyrian cylinders.
At Moscow aud st. Petersburg an Con-
stantinope have seen great masses of this
sapphire, commonly called lapis lazuli. 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. 1t makes strong stone for the
foundation, for it is the hardest of all min
erals except tne diamond.
Sapphire based on jasper, blue sky over
a fiery sunset. st. John points to it in Rev
eIation and says, 1.-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
fisurative. The deep blue of our skies and
the deep blue of our seas must not, WIN not,
be forgotten. If a thousand years after the
world has gone to asaeS you OF j want to
recall how the earthly skies lookeI 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.
Oh, am so glad that st. John told us
about it'll 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 1t was
yet aHoat and aswing, and Wa shall want to
tell them about how it looked at certain
times, and then it will be a 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, ut looked
like that stratum of foundation next to the
lowest" John, twenty-firsC chapter anu
nineteenth verse, "The second sapphire"
A step higher and you come to chal-
cedony, another layer in the foundation OF
the wall and the running 1900 miles around
the heavenly city. Chalcedonyl Trans,
lucent. A divine mixture of agates and
opaIs and comedians Striped with white
and gray. Dashed of pallor biushing int3
red ami darkenlng into purple. Ice anu aad
the He5rides hold forth beautiful specimens
of chalcedony,
But now we must make a swift ascent to
the top of the foundation wall, for we can
not minutely examine all the layers, ana So
putting one foot on the chalcedony OF which