Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1898-08-17
OF THE DAY

"si1ence in Heaven" the subject-Th,
Mighty Import Of the Cessation De
scribed in RevelatiOns-Half Hour
Which Have Determined Destlnies.
TEXT: "There was silence in HEAVIER
about the space Of half an hour.''-Reve
lations, viii., 1.
Take this watch and keep It," said {
dying Christian rs he picked 1t up from
the stand ut his pillow, 81 have no more
need OF 1t. l am going where time shall
be no longer" But II seems from my text
that heaven was at least once measured
by an earthly time-piece.
The busiest place in the universe Il
heaven. 1t is the center from which ali
good influences start; 1t is the goal al
which all good results arrive. The Bible
represents 1t as active, with wheels and
wings and orchestras and professions
mounted or charioted. But my text de.
scribes space when the wheels ceased to
roll and the trumpets to sound and the
voices to chant. The riders on the white
horses reined in their chargers. The dox-
ologies were hushed and the professions
halted. The hand OF arrest was put upon
all the splendors. stop, Heavenp' cried
an omnipotent voice, and it stopped Fol-
thirty minutes everything celestial stood
still. 'There was silence in heaven foI
the space of half an hour"
From all We can learn it is the only time
heaven ever stopped. 1t does not stop, as
other cities, for the night, for there is no
night there. It does not stop fora plague,
for the inhabitant never says, Il am
sick" 1t does not stop for bankruptcies,
for its inhabitants never fail. 1t does not
stop for impossible streets, for there are
no fallen SHOWS or sweeping freshets
What, then. stopped it for thirty minutes'
Grotius and Professor Stuart think 1t was
at the time of the destruction of Jerusa-
lem. Mr.. Lord thinks 1t was in the year
81. near the close OF the Diocletian perse-
cution and the beginning of the wars by
which Constantine gained the throne. But
that was all guess, though learned and
brilliant guess. l do not know when it
was, and do not care when it was, but of
the fact that such an interregnum of sound
took place l am certain. "There was
silence In heaven for the space of half an
hour"
And. first of all, we may learn that God
and all heaven then honored silence. The
full power Of silence many of US have yet
to learn. We are told that when Christ
was arraigned "He answered not a word -
That silence was louder than any thunder
that ever shook the world. Ofttimes, when
we are assailed and misrepresented, the
mightfest thing to say is to say nothing,
and the mightiest thing to do is to do moth
ing. Those people who are always rush
ing into print to get themselves set right,
accomplish nothing but their own chagrin.
SilenceI Do right and leave the results
with God. Among the grandcst lessons
the world has ever learned are the lessons
Of patience taught by those who endured
uncom mplainiDgly personal or domestic or
political injustice. Oh, the power of
patient silenceI Eschylus. the immortal
poet, was condemned to death for writing
that offended the people. All
the pleas in his behalf were OF no avail un-
prisoner and showed that his wrist had
been sacrificed for his country at the battle,
Of Salamis. That silent plea liberated
him. The loudest thing on earth is silence
IL 1t be of the right kind and at the right
time. There was quaint old hymn,
spelled In the old style, once sung In the
;hurches:
The race is not forever get
BY him who fastest ruEs,
Nor the Battel by those peopen
That shoot with the longest gun.
NY friends, the tossing sea OF Galilee
seemed more to offend Christ by the amount
OF noise it made, for He said to 1t: BE
stili!' Heaven has been crowning Kings
and Queens unto God for many centuries
yet heaven never stopped a moment for
any such occurrence, but it stopped thirty
90 There was silence in heaven for the space
Of half an hour
Learn also from MY text that heaven
must be an eventful and active place, from
the fact that it could afford only thirty
minutes of recess. There have been events
on earth and in heaven that seemed to de-
mand whole day or whole week or whole
year for celestial consideration. II Grotius
was right and this silence occurred at the
time of the de struction of Jerusalem, that
scene was so awful and so prolonged that
the inhabitants of heaven could not have
done justice to 1t in many weeks. After
fearful besiegement of the two fortresses of
Jerusalem Antonio and Hippicus- had
been going on for long while, Roman
soldier mounted on the shoulder of another
soldier hurled into the window of the tenn
pie 'hrebrand, and the temple was all
afiame, and after covering many sacrifices
to the holiness of God, the building itself
became n sacrifice to the rage of man. The
hunger of the people in that city during
the besiegemcnt was so great that as
some outlaws were passing a doorway and
inhaled the odors of food they burst open
the door, threatening the mother of the
household with death unless she gave
them some food, and she took them aside
and showed them that 1t was her own child
she was cooking for the CHASTITY repast. Six
hundred priests were destroyed on Mount
was nothing for them to do. Six thousand
people In one cloister were consumed.
There were 1, ,100, 900 dead, according to
Josephus. Grotius thinks that this was the
cause OF silence In heaven for half an hour.
II Mr.. Lord was right, and this silence was
during the Diocletian prosecutions, by
which S44 600 Christians suffered death
from sword and fire, and Punishment and
exposure, why did not heaven listen
at least one of those awful
years? No! Thirty minutesi The fact is
that the celestial programme Is so crowded
with spectacle that 1t can afford only ono
recess in all eternity, and that for a short
space. While there are great chorouses in
which all heaven can join, each soul there
has a story of divine mercy peculiar to it
self, and it must be solo. How can heaven
get through with all its solos, as well as
all its recitatives, with all its cantatas,
with all its grand marches, with all its vic
tories? Eternity Is too short to utter all
the praise.
Not only are all the triumphs of the past
10 be commemorated, but all the triumphs
TO come. Not only what we now know OF
God, but what we will know Of Him after
study of the Deiflc. II my text
had said there was silence in heaven for
thirty days, I would not have been startled
at the announcement, but it indicates thir-
" minutes. Why, there will be so many
good and useful that we will want to see;
30 many of the unserutable things of earth
We will need explained; so many exciting
earthly experiences we will want to talk
over, and all the other spirits and the ages
will want the same, that there will be nc
opportunity for cessation. How busy We
will be kept In having pointed out to us the
heroes and heroines that the world never
Iully appreciated-the yellow fever and
cholera doctors, who died not flying from
heir posts; the female nurses who faced
pestilence In the lazarettoes; the railroad
engineers who stayed at their places in or
der to save the train, though they them
selves perished and went down through
the open drawbridge.
Hubert Coffin, the master miner, who,
from the bucket at the bottom OF
The mine, just as he heard the waters rush
IN, and when one jerk Of the rope wonld
have lifted him to safety, put n blind
miner who wanted to go to his sick child
IN tho bucket, and jerked the rope for hin
70 be pulled up. crying: Tell them the
water has burst In and we are probably
ost; but We will seek refuge at the other
nd Of the gallery" and then giving the
to the other miners till they
lipped Themselves so near out that the