The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1893-03-18
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Precious Stones In the Foun-
dalton Walls Of Heaven.
The Most Stupeudous Splendor OF the
Universe Within tho Watls-St.
Johns Description and
What It Signifies.

Rev. Il. Dewitt Talmage delivered
the following discourse in the Brooklyn
tabernacle in continuation of his series
ON 'God Everywhere" The subject
was: 1.-THE Wall of Heaven" and the
text:
The foundations of tho wall of the city were
garnished with all manner of precious stones
Revelation xxi. 10.
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 concerning your de-
parted Christian friends by giving you
some idea of the brilliancy of the
scenes in which they now commingle;
to give all who love the Lord more
elevated idea as to where they are go
ing to pass the most of the years OF
their existence; and to set all the in
different and neglectful to quick and
immediate preparation, that they may
have it likewise. Yea, it 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 BIZ
blc--I mean the precious stones; their
crystalization, their power OF refrac-
ton, their cleavage, their fracture,
their luster, their phosphoresence, their
transparency, their infnity 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.
My text stands us in the presence of
the most stupendous splendor of the
universe, and that's the wall of Heaven,
and says of it's foundations that they
are garnished with all manner of pre-
cious stones. All the ancient cities had
walls for safety, and Heaven has q
wall for everlasting safety. You may
say that wall made up OF all manner
of precious stones is figurative, but you
can not understand the force and sig
nifcance of the figure unless You know
something about the real structure and
color and value of the precious stones
mentioned. Now, propose this morn
ing, so far as the Lord may help me, 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 then to
stay down on the stupid level where
the most of us have all our lives been
standing. We begin clear down at the
bottom and where the wall begins.
The first layer of the foundation,
reaching all around the city and for
one thousand five hundred miles. is
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 super
structure. The jasper is congregation
of many colors. 1t is brown. it is yell
low, it is green, it is vermilion, 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 ST.
IBERIA and Egypt. but it is rare In most
lands and of great value, but it is SO
hard the ordinary processes can not
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 glass
doors of museums. The portraits of
Roman emperors were cut into it. The
finest intaglio ever seen is in the vati-
can museum, the head of Minerva in
jasper. BY Divine arrangement. jas
per adorned the breastplate of the high
priest in the ancient temple. But its
most significant position is where it
CLOVIS and burns and darkens and
brightens and breaches from the lowest
strata of the walls of Heaven. Glad
am that the very first row of stones
in the wall of Heaven is jasper of many
colors, and if you like purple it is pur-
pie, and if you like brown it is brown,
and if you like green it is green, and if
you like ochre-yellow it is ochrc-vel-
low, and if you like vermilion it is YER
million, and if you like black it is black.
1t suggests to me that Heaven is place
of all colors-colors of opinion. colors
of creed. colors of skin, colors of taste.
But we must pass up in this inspec
ton of the foundations of the great
wall of Heaven, and after leaving the
jasper, the next precious stone reached
is sapphire, and it sweeps around the
city fifteen hundred miles. Alllapi-
diaries agree in saying that the sapphire
of the Bible is what we now call lapis
lazuli. Job speaks with emotion of
1.-THE Place of Sapphires," and God
thought so much of this precious stone
that He put it in the breastplate of the
high priest; commanding, THE second
row shall be an emerald, sapphire
and diamond" The sapphire is q
blue, but varies from faintest hue to
deepest ultramarine. 1t is found a
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 ex-
quisite specimens. It's blue eye is seen
in the valley of the Rhine. After q
burial of thousands of years it has been
brought to sight in Egyptian
monuments and Assyrian cylin-
ders. At Moscow and ST. Peters
burg and Constantinople have seen
great masses of this SAPPHIRE commonly
called lapis lazuli The closer you study
its veins the more enchanting, and do
not wonder that the sapphire is called
into the foundation of the wall of