Milford chronicle., 1893-01-27
ATTHE TABERNACLE.
DR.. TALMAGE RESUMES HIS SERIES
ON GOD EVERYWHERE.
His idea of the Twelve Stones Mentioned
by st. John as in the Foundation of the
wall of the New Jerusalem.

| among the Stars The Chronology of the
Bible; OF, God among the Centuries" THE
Ornithology of the Bible; or, God Among
the Birds" he today speaks of "The Prec-
ious Stones Of the Bible; or, God Among
the Amethysts" Subject, 1.-THE Wall Of
Heaven" Text, Revelation xxi, 10, "The
foundations of the wall Of the city were gar
nished with all manner OF precious stones.
Shall I be frank and tell you what are
nv designs on you today2 They are to
make YOU homesick for heaven; to console
you concerning your departed Christian
| friends by giving you some idea of the bril-
liancy of the scenes in which they now COM
mingle; 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 Indifferent and
neglectful to quick and immediate prepara-
tion, that they may have it likewise.
Yea, it is to induce many OF our young
people to study a volume OF God that lew
aver omen. but without some acquaintance
with which it is impossible to understand
the Bible-I mean the precious stones
their crystallization, their powers Of re-
fraction. their cleavage, their fracture, their
| luster. their phosphoresence, their trans
parency, their infinity 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.
MARvELs OF THE UNIVERSE.
Nv text stands us in the presence of the
most stupendous splendor Of the universe
| and that is the wall Of heaven, and 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 a wall for everlasting safety.
/ You NAV sav that a wall made up of all
manner of precious stones is figurative, but
von cannot 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 men
/ toned.
Now I Ipropose this morning, so far as the
/ Lord NAV 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 bet
ter that than to stay down on the stupid
/ level where 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, reach
| ing all around the city and for 500 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
mart of the foundation, but makes up the
! chief part of the superstructure. The jas
ner is n CONGREGATION of many colOrs. 1t IS
brown: it is yellow; it is green; it is YER
million: it is red; it is purptr; it is black,
and is so striped with cOlors that much OF
| it is called ribbon jasper.
/ It is found in Siberia and Egypt, but 1t 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 1t has
been deposited The workmen bore holes
into the rock Of jasper, then drive into
these holes sticks of dry brentwood, and
then saturate the sticks and keep them
saturated until they swell enough to split
the rock, and the fragments are brought
ont and polished and transported and cut
into canoes and put behind the glass doors
of museums.
The portraits of Roman emperors were
cut into it. The finest intaglio ever seen is
| in the Vatican museum. the head of Miner
va in Jasper. By divine arrangement Jas
Der adorned the breastplate of the high
priest in the ancient temple. But It's most
significant position is where 1t glows and
burns and darkens and brlghtens 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 in many colors, and If you ike pur-
pie it is purple, and if you like brown IL Is
brown, and if you like green II IS green,
and if you like Ocher yellow 1t IS ocher yel-
low. and if YOU like vermilion it is vermil-
ion and if YOU like black it is black. 1t
suggests to me that heaven is place OF all
of or,fuioT rOlorg of creed.
eolors of skin, colors Of taste.
PRECIOUS STONES INDEED.
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 reachedis sapphire, andit sweeps
around the city 800 miles. All lapidarles
agree in saying that the sapphire of the
Bible is what we now call lapis lazuli Job
| speaks with emotion Of ''the place of sap
phires," and God thought so much Of this
precious stone that he put it in the breast
plate of the high priest, commanding, Inc
second row shall be an emerald, sapphire
and diamond"
The sapphire is a blue, but varies from
faintest hue to deepest ultramarlne. IL Is
found a pebble in the rivers Of CS9lon. 1t
is elsewhere in compact masses Persia
and Thibet and Burmah and New South
Wales and North Carolina yield exquisite
sDecimens. Its blue is seen in the valley of
the Rhine. After burial of thousands Of
wears it has been brought to sight in Egyp-
tian monuments and Assyrian cylinders.
At Moscow and St. Petersburg and Con-
stantinople l have seen great masses OF thls
sapphire, commonly called lapis lazuh'
The closer you study its veins the more en-
chanting, and ! do not wonder that the
sapphire is called into the foundation OF
the wall of heaven. 1t makes strong
stone for the foundation, for it is the hard
est of all minerals except the diamond.
Sapphire based on jasper, blue sky over
a fiery sunset. St. John points to it in Rev
elation and says, THE second, sapphire,
and this suggests to mo that though our
earth and an 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 figilrative. The deep blue Of our skies
and the deep blue of our seas must not, will
not be forgotten. If thousand years after
the world has gone to ashes you or want
to recall how the earthly skies looked in
summer noon or in the midocean in
calm. we will have only to look at the sec
ond row of the foundation Of the wall of
heaven.
Oh, 1 am SO glad that st. John told US
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 converse about this earth when it was
vet afloat and aswing, and We shall want
to tell them about how it looked at certain
times, and then 1t 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 ofheaven, 1t looked
like that stratum of foundation next to the
lowest" John, twenty-first chapter ana
nineteenth verse, ssThe second, sapphire"
THE DIVINE ARCHITECTURE.
A step higher and you come to ehal2 e.
dony. another layer IN the foundati @oI
the wall and running 1,500 miles e 81 an,