Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-10-31
from the palace gate. Glad news! Vic
SOriOuS news

from the palace gate. Glad news! Vic
| Sorious news!
A Glorious Day.
But the vivacity and sprightliness of
heaven will be beyond all conception
when the final victories come in, when
the church shall be triumphant every
where. Oh, what day in heaven it
will be when the last throne of earthly
oppression has fallen, when the last
chain of serfdom is broken, when the
last wound of earthly pain is healed.
when the last sinner is pardoned, when
the last nation is redeemed! What a
time there will be in heaven! You and
will be in the procession. You and I
will thrum string in that great orches-
ira. That will be the greatest day in
heaven since the day when the first
block of jasper was put down for the
foundation and the first hinged pearl
swung If there is difference between
heaven now and heaven as it was, oh,
| the difference between heaven as 1t
| shall be and heaven as it is now! Not a
splendor stuck fast, but rolling on and
rolling on, and rolling up and rolling
up, forever, forever.
Now, I say these things about the
changes in heaven, about the new i'm
provements in heaven, for three stout
reasons. First, because I find that some
| of you are impatient to be gone. You
| are tired of this world and you want to
| get into that good land about which
you have been thinking, praying and
talking SO many years. Now be patient.
could see why you would want to go
10 NJ ~ fh0 hos
pictures were to be taken away this
week or next week, but if some one tells
you that there are other beautiful pic
lures to come-other Kensetts, RaphaeIs
and Rubenses-other masterpieces to
be added to the gallery-you would
say: 81 can afford to wait. The place
is improving all the time" Now, I
want you to apply the same principle
in this matter of reaching heaven and
leaving this world. Not one glory is to
be subtracted, but many glories added.
Not one angel will be gone, not one
hierarch gone, not one of your glorifed
friends gone. By the long practicing
the music will be better, the procession
will be longer, the rainbow brighter,
the coronation grander. Heaven, with
magnificent addenda! Why will you
complain when you are only waiting
for som ething better?
Always Bright.
Another reason why speak in regard
to the changes in heaven and the new
improvements in heaven is because
think it will be consolation to busy
and enterprising good people. see very
we'll that you have not much taste for
hoauor1 thot oil fni chnd
centuries ago. After you have been &C
tive 40 or SO or so years it would be
shock to stop you suddenly and forever,
but here is progressive heaven, an
ever accumulative heaven, vast enter
prise on foot there before the throne of
God. Aggressive knowledge, aggressive
goodness, aggressive power, aggressive
grandeur. You will not have to come
and sit down on the banks of the river
Of life in everlasting inoccupation. Oh,
busy men, tell you of a heaven where
there is something to do! That is the
meaning of the passage, "They rest not
day nor night in the lazy sense of rest
ing.
speak these words on the changes in
heaven and the new improvements in
heaven also because want to cure some
of you of the delusion that your depart
ed Christian friends have gone into
dullness and silence and unconscious
ness. They are in stirring, pictur-
esque, radiant ever accumulative scene.
When they left their bodies, they only
got rid of the last hindrance. They are
no more in lakewood, Laurel Hill or
Mount Auburn than you in holiday at
tire, having seated yourself at ban
quet, can be said to be in a dark closet
where you have left the old apparel
that was not fit to wear to the banquet.
A soldier cannot use sword until he
has unsheathed it, and the body of your
departed was only the sheath of bright |
and glittering spirit which God has !
lifted and is swaying in the heavenly
triumph. According to what I am tell
ing you at present, your departed Chris
tian friends did not go SO much into |
the company of the martyrs, and the |
apostles, and the prophets, and the po- |
tentates of heaven as into the company |
of grandfather and grandmother, and |
the infant sister that tarried just long |
enough to absorb your tenderest affec-
tion and all the home circle. When they
landed, it was not as you land in Ant
werp or Hamburg or Havre, wandering
up strange wharf, looking at strange
faces, asking for strange hotel. They
landed amid your glorified relatives.
who were waiting to greet them.
No Frozen SpIendor.
Oh, does not this bring heaven nearer?
Instead of being far off, it comes down
just now, and it puts its arms around
our necks and we feel it's breath on our
faces. 1t melts the frigid splendor of
the conventional heaven into domestic
scene 1t comes very close to us. If we