The Penn's Grove record., 1894-02-09
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE'S SUN,
DAY SERMON.
Subject: SEA Vision of Heaven

The heaueas toereopeaed and I sdp visions o.
God"-E2edel t., !.
Expatriated and in far exile on tho banks
OF the river Chebar, an af1uent of the Eu-
pirates, sat Ezekiel. 1t was there he had an
immortal dream, and it Is givento us in the
Holy Scriptures. He dreamed Of Tyre and
Egypt. He dreamed of Christ and the com
ing heaven. This exile, seated by that river
Chebar, had a more wonderful dream than
you or 1 ever have had or ever will have
seated on the banks of the Hudson or Ala
bama or Oregon or Thames or Tiber or
Danube.
But we all have had memorable dreams,
some OF them when we were half asleep and
mali awake, so that we did not know whether
they were born Of shadow or sunlight.
whether they were thoughts let loose and
d~isarranged as in slumber, or the magma
ton Of faculties awake.
Such a dream Ihad this morning. 1t was
o hslf-past 5, and the day was breaking.
IL was a dream of God, a dream OF heaven.
Ezekiel had his dream on the banks of the
Chebar l had my dream not far from the
banks of the Hudson. The most of the stories
OF heaven were written many centuries ago,
and they tell US how the place looked them
or how It will look centuries ahead. Would
you not like to know how 1t looks now? That
is what I am going to tell you. / was there
this morning. 1 have just got back. How l
got into that city of the sun / know not.
Which of the twelve gates 1 entered is to me
uncertain. But my first remembrance of the
scene is that l stood on one OF the main ave-
nues, looking this way and that, lost in rap
lures, and the air so full of music and redo
lence and laughter and light that l knew not
which street to take, when an angel of God
accosted me and offered to show me the OBJ
leets OF greatest interest, and conduct me
from street to street, and from mansion to
mansion. and from temple to temple. and
l from tuon fn r-nl r anll A. A. ..-I IN
long hast thou been in heaven?' and the an
swer, ''Thirty-two years according to the
earthly calendar"
There was a secret about this angels name
that was not given me, but from the lender
ness and sweetness and affection and inter-
est taken In my walk through heaven, and
more than all in the fact of thirty-two years
residence, the number of years siaee she
assembled, l think it was my mother. Old
age and d~ecrepitude and the tired look were
all gone, but l think 1t was she. You see, l
was only on a visit to the city and had not
yet taken up residence, n / could know
only in part,
l looked in for a few moments at the great
temple. Our brilliant and lovely Scotch es-
say1st, Mr.. Drummond, says there is no
church in heaven, but he did not LOOK for it
on the right street. ST. John was right when
IN his Patmosic vision, recorded In the third
chapter OF Revelation, he speaks of 'tthe
tCupic MY bOu. L ShW 1t ibis morning,
tue largest church l ever saw. as big as all
the churches and cathedrals OF the earth put
together, and it was %thronged. oh, what n
multituie. l had never seen so many peo-
pie together. All the audiences of all the
churches of all the earth put together would
make a poor attendance compared with the
assemblage. There was a fashion in attire
and headdress that Immediately took my at
tention. The fashion was white. All in
white, save one. And the headdress was a
garland of rose and lily and mignonette,
mingled with green leaves culled from the
royal gardens and bound together with bands
Of gold.
And l saw some young men with a ring on
the finger OF the right hand and said to my
accompanying angel, "Why those rings on
the fingers of the right hands?' and L was
told that those who wore them were prodigal
sons and once fed swine in the wilderness
and lived on husks, but they came home, and
the rejoicing father said, Put a ring on his
hand"
But / said there was one exception to this
fashion OF white pervading all the auditorium
and clear up through all the galleries. 1t
was the attire of the one who presided in
that immense ~temple-the chiefest, the
mightiest, the loyeliest person in all the
place. His cheeks seemed to be flushed with
infinite beauty, and his forehead was a
morning sky, and his lips were ~eloquence
omnipotent. But his attire was of deep
colors. They suggested the carnagethrough
which he had passed, and I said to my at
tending angel, "What is that crimson robe
that he wears" and / was told, ''They are
dyed garments from Bozrah," and "He trod
the wine press Alone"
Soon after / entered this temple they be-
gan to chant the celestial litany. 1t was un-
like anything i had ever heard for sweetness
and power, and / have heard the most sweet
OF the great organs and the most of the
great oratorios. l said to my accompanying
angel, "Who Is that standing yonder with
the harp?' and the answer was, s'David ~
And 1 said, 'Who is that sounding that
t%rumpetY" and the answer was Gabriel r
And l said, "Who Is that at the organ?'. and
the answer was "HandeiT n the music
rolled on till it came to doxology extolling
Christ Himself, when all the worshipers,
lower down and higher up, a thousand gal
leries Of them, suddenly dropped on their
knees and ehanted, worth is the Lamb that
was slain Under the overpowering har-
mony fell back. l said 'Let us go. This
Is too much for mortal ears. I cannot bear
the overwhelming symphony"
But noticed as was about to turn away
that on the steps OF the altar was something
like the lachyrmal, or tear bottle, as 1 had
seen 1t In the earthly musems, the lachry-
mails, or tear bottles, into which the orien-
tails used to weep their griefs and set them
away as sacred. But this lachyrmal, or tear
bottle, In stead of earthenware, as those the
orientals used, was ~lustrous and fiery with
many splendors, and 1T was towering and of
great capacity. And l said to my attending
angel, What is that great lachrymal, or
tear bottle, standing on the step of the altar?'
n the angel said "Why, don't you know?
That Is the bottle to which David, the psalm
ist, referred in this fifty-sixth psalm when he
said, Put thou my tears into fly bottle 1t
is full OF tears from e~arth-tears OF repen-
tance, tears OF bereavement, tears Of Joy,
tears of many centuries" And then saw
how sacred tothe sympathetic God are earth
ly sorrows.
As I was coming out of the temple 1 saw
all along the pictured walls there were
shelves, and golden Walls were being set up
on all those shelves. And l said "Why the
setting up of all these walls at this time?
They seem just now to have been filed"
and the attending angel said, 'The week of
prayer all around the earth has just closed,
and more applications have been made than
have been made for q long while, and these
new Walls, newly set up, are what the Bible
speaks OF as golden yia;s full OF odors,
which are the prayers ofsaints." Inc 1 said
| to the accompanying angel, Can 1t be posi-
BILE that the prayers Of earth are Syorthy OF
being kept in such heavenly shapeT' "Why,''
said the angel, there is nothing that so
moves heaven as the prayers Of earth, and
they are set up in sight of these infinite
multitudes, and, more than all, in the sight
of Christ, and He cannot forget them, and
they are before Him world without end,
Then we came out, and as the temple is al
ways open and ZONE worship at one hour
and others at other hours we passed down
the street amid the throngs coming TO AMI
going from the great temple. And we passed
along through a street called Martyr place,
and we met there, or saw sitting at the WIN
dows, the souls Of those who on earth went
through fire and blood and under sword AMI
rack. We saw John Wyclif, whose ashes
were by decree Of the council of Constance
thrown into the river, and Rogers, who
bathed HIS hands in the fire as though It hal
been water, and Bishop Hooper and McKail
and Latimer and Rldleyand Polycarp, whom
the names refused to destroy as they bent
outward TILL a spear did the work, and some
OF the Aibigenses and H~uguenots and conse-
Grated Quakers who were slain for their re
ligion. They had on them many scars. blu
their scars were illumined, and they had OF
their faces a look OF especial triumph.