Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-01-02
REV. DIR. PARKHURST ON HEAVEN.
MateriaIizIng Heavenly Things.
HEAVEN A LOCALITY

n
| On Sunday, Dec. 23rd, Rev. Dr.. Park
hurst of n. Y, preached to crowded
house in Madison Square Presbyterian
church. He does not believe Heaven
is wholly spiritual. He said
Il am not one who thinks there is a
great danger in Undertaking. heavenly
| things. You cannot read the apoca
lyptic description of the new Jerusalem
| without feeling that with it's walls and
gates, its avenues and mansions it will
| be as substantial an affair as the origi-
nal Jerusalem. A world that is simply
| a spirit world is not a world that we
can either think about with any safety
| or that we are qualified to have any
particular interest in. There is no war
rant in Scripture for thinking that the
more unlike this earth you imagine
| thing to be the more heavenly it is.
"Christ was somewhere before He
were here, and there is no ground for
supposing that that where is essential
ly unlike any other where Human
choirs will not become angelic choirs
by undertaking to sing falsetto.
ITS RESEMBLANCE TO EARTH
Heaven is undoubtedly a locality.
The first Paradise, which was certainly
an exceedingly commendable Paradise,
was a locality, and there has been, in
the meantime, no such change in the
constitution of our nature as to indicate
that a paradise that is not local would
be any improvement on the original.
What geology teaches us in one way
astronomy teaches us in another, and
shows that away out in the celestial
OF, ta1 60, l. ~
it would take a flash of light a thou
| sand years to jump the interval, things
| are made in the same way and work in
the same way that they do here. There
is no sign of God getting tired of the
order of things as it obtains in regions
nearer home.
$50 don't put Heaven where you
please. If you put it anywhere, every
thing is in favor of it's being structural
| ly a great deal like what we are famil-
lar with here. One might about as well
part with his identify at death as be
| thrust into a realm that is structually
distinct from the one we are used to.
This fixed fact of locality is great
help to us. 1t instantly possesses all
this matter of the heavenly with the
steadying feature of the real-the real
as opposed to the visionary, the real
| as opposed to the indefnable. We can
not make map of heaven, but it is to
be supposed that it could be mapped.
| CONCEIVABLE HEAVEN.
1--WE might as well stop talking or
thinking about heaven altogether as
to subscribe to an inconceivable heav-
en-, and the only heaven that is not in
conceivable is heaven that in it's struc-
Uural features is prolongation of the
earth We are now living on-a region
that is somewhere and could be put
down in parallels and meridians in the
universal atlas, if ever that atlas were
to be produced and published.
Il am disposed to believe that if we
materialized the heavenly world more
we should be less tempted to override
the naturalization of tn is world. Ii
other words, there would Ces less of the
animal in our lives here if we did no,
J pit91n - Ties of the heavenly worlc
in so spir,f,,aa va key as to embarrass al
thGaght ..% Suai heaven and discourage
, all interest in it and all care to go there
, This is not said in the interests of al
, immoral heaven, but of an interesting
heaven"