Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1893-01-25
The Wall of Heaven.


DR.. Talmage's subject was 'The Wall
of Heaven" and his text, Revelation
xxi. 10, 1.-THE foundations of the wall of
the city were garnished with all manner
of precious stones"
Shall | be frank and tell you what are
my designs on you to-day? They are to
make you hOmesick for Heaven; to con-
sole you concerning your departed Chris
tian friends by giving you some idea of
the brilliancy of the scenes III which they
now cOmmingle; to give all who love the
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
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 ac-
Quaintaince with which it is impossible
to understand the Bible-I mean the
precious stones, their disqualification,
their powers of refraction, their cleavage,
their fracture, their luster, their phos-
phoresence, their transparency, their in
finity 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 uni
verse, 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, and Heaven has a wall for
everlasting safety. You may say that a
wall made up of all manner of precious
stones is fgurative, but you cannot
understand the force and significance of
the figure unless you know something
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 l 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 stand
ing, We begin clear down at the bot
tom and where the wall begins
The Jasper Wall.
The first layer of the foundation,
reaching all around the city and for
there is more of jasper in the wall of
Heaven than of any other brilliant, be-
cause it not only composes part of the
foundation, but makes up the chief part
Of the superstructure. The jasper is a
congregation Of many colOrs. 1t is
brown, it is yellow, it is green, it is ver-
million, 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 pro-
cesses cannot break it off from the places
where it has been deposited. The work
men 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 frag-
ments are brought out and polished and
transported and cut into canoes and put
behind the glass doors of museums.
Theiportraits of Roman Emperors were
cut into it. The finest intaglio ever seen
is in the Vatican Museum, the head of
Minerva in jasper By divine arrange
menG jasper adorned the breaStplate of
the high priest in the ancient temple
But it's most significant position is
where it CLOVIS and burns and darkens
and brightens and breaches from the
lowest stratum Of the wall of Heaven.
Glad ana l that the very first row Of
stones in the wall of Heaven is jasper of
many colors, 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 yellow it is ocher yellow,
and if you like vermillion it is vermillion,
and if you like black it is black. 1t sug-
gests to me that Heaven is place Of all
colors-colors of opinion, colors Of creed,
colors of skin, coiors of taste.
The Blue Sapphire.
But we must pass up in this inspection
of the foundations of the great wall of
Heaven, and after leaving the jasper tn
next precious stone reached is sapphire,
and it sweeps around the city l., 500 miles,
All laDidarieS 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
t hat he put it in the breastplate of the
high priest, commanding, THE second
row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and
diamond"
The sapphire is blue, but varies from
faintest hue to deepest ultramarine. It
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 exqui-
site specimens. 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 Egyptian monuments and
! Assyrian cylinders.
At Moscow and st. Petersburg and
| onstantinople [ have seen great masses
of this sapphire, commonly called lapis
| lazui. The closer you study its veins
| the more enchanting, and / do not won
der that the sapphire is called into the
| foundation of the wall of Heaven. 1t
makes a strong stone for the foundation,
| for, it is the hardest Of all minerals eX-
cept the diamond.
Sapphire based on jasper. a blue sky
over fiery sunset. ST. John points to
| it in Revelation and says, ''The second,
| sapphire" and this suggests to me that
| though our earth and all it's furniture of
mountains and seas and atmospheres are
to Ito, nd ,iCI