The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-07
ENVIRONMENTS OF HEAVEN.
DIR. TALMAGE GIVES A VIEW OF
THE CELESTIAL WORLD.

tian Friends Doing Now t-Cannot
the Soul Sing Pills Text Taken
From Ezekiel l., 1.
Washington, Dec. 6.-Dr. Talmage's ser
mon to-day, gives a very unusual view of
the celestial world, and is one of the most
unique discourses of the great preacher.
The text is Ezekiel 1, 1: Now it came to
pass in the thirtieth year. in the fourth
month in the fifth day of the month. as
/ was among the captives by the river Of
Chebar. that the heavens were opened"
Ezekiel, with others. had been expatri-
ated and while in foreign slavery, was
standing on the banks Of the royai canal
which he and the other serfs had been
condemned to dig by the order of Nebuch-
adnezzar-this royal canal in the text call
ed the river of Chebar-the illustrious ex-
lie had visions of heaven. Indeed, it is
almost always so, that the brightest Wis
aons of heaven come not to those who are
on mountain-top of prosperity, but to some
John on desolate Patmos, or TO some Paul
sn Mamertine dungeon, or to some Eze-
kiel standing on the banks of a ditch he
had been compelled to dig-yea, to the
weary, to the heart-broken, to those whom
sorrow has banished. The text is very
particular to give us the exact time Of the
vision. 1t was in the thirtieth year. and
in the fourth month, and in the fifth day
of the month. SO you have had visions
of earth you shall never forget. You re-
member the year. you remember the
month, you remember the day, you remem-
Der the hour. Why may we not have
some such vision now, and it be in the
twelfth month, and in sixth day of the
month?
The question is often silently asked
though perhaps never audibly PROFOUND
ed, What are our departed Christian
friends doing now?" The question is more
easily answered than you might perhaps
suppose Though there has come no re-
cent intelligence from the heavenly city
and we seem dependent upon the story of
eighteen centuries ago still l think we
may from strongest inference decide what
are the present occupations of our trans
ferred kinsfolk. After God has made
nature he never eradicates the chief char
acteristic of its temperament. You never
knew man phlegmatic in temperament TO
become sanguine in temperament You
never knew a man sanguine in tempera-
ment to become phlegmatic in tempera-
ment. Conversion plants new principles
in the soul, but Paul and John are just as
different from each other after conversion
as they were different from each other be-
fore conversion. If conversion does not
eradicate the prominent characteristics of
temperament neither will death eradicate
them. Paul and John are as different from
each other in heaven as they were differ
ent from each other in Asia Minor.
You have then only by sum in sub
traction and a sum in addition to decide
what are the employments of your depart
ed friends in the better world. You are
to subtract from them all earthly gross
ness and add all earthly goodness, and
then you are to come to the conclusion
that they are doing now in heaven what
in their best moment they did on earth.
The reason why so many people never
start for heaven is because they could not
stand ii If they got there If ii should turn
out to be the rigid and formal place some
people photograph II. We like to come
10 church, but we would not want to stay
here till next summer. We like to hear the
"Hellelujah Chorus" but we would not
want to hear it all the time for fifty CEN
turtles. 1t might be on some great occa-
sion, it would be possibly comfortable TO
wear crown of gold weighing several
pounds, but it would be an affiiction TO
wear such a crown forever. In other
words, we run the descriptions of heaven
into the ground while we make that which
was intended as especial and celebrative
TO be the exclusive employment in heaven.
You might as well, if asked to describe
the habits of American society, describe a
Decoration day, or a Fourth of July, or an
autumnal Thanksgiving, as though it Were
all the time that way.
1 am not going to speculate in regard
TO the future world, but I must, by ineVi-
table laws of inference and deduction and
common sense, conclude that in heaven
we will be just as different from each
other as we are now different, and hence
that there will be at least as many differ
ent employments in the celestial world as
there are employments here. Christ is to
be the great love, the great joy, the great
rapture, the great worship of heaven, but
will that abolish employments? No more
than love on earth-paternal flial, fra
ternal conjugal love, abolishes earthly
occupation.
In the first place. remark that all those
of our departed Christian friends, who. on
earth, found great joy In the fine arts, are
now indulging their tastes in the same di-
rection. On earth they had their gladdest
pleasure amid pictures and statuary, and
in the study of the laws of light and shade
and perspective. Have you any idea that
that afiuence of faculty at death col
lapsed and persisted? Why so, when there
is more for them to look at and they have
keener appreciation of the beautiful, and
they stand amid the very looms where
the sunsets and the rainbows and the
spring mornings are woven? Are you so
obtuse as TO suppose that be-
cause the painter drops his
easel and the sculptor his chisel,
and the engraver his knife, that therefore
that taste, which he was enlarging and
intensifying for forty or fifty years. is en-
tirely obliterated? These artists, or these
friends Of art on earth worked In coarse
material and with imperfect brain and
with frail hand. Now they have carried
their art into larger liberties and into
wider circumference. They are at their
old business yet, but without the fatigues
without the limitations, without the hin
ORANGES of the terrestrial studio. Raphael
could improve upon his masterpiece Of
Michael the Archangel now that he has
seen him, and could improve upon his
masterpiece of the Holy Trinity" now
that ne has visited them. Michael Angelo
could better present the Last Judgment
after he had seen its fash and heard the
rumblng battering-rams of it's thunder
Exquisite colors here, graceful lines here
AHM