Connecticut western news., 1898-11-03

heaven 1liIat was i..i 1Cone .sna nnisilcG tive 10 or 90 or 50 years it would be shock to stop you suddenly and forever, but here is a progressive heaven, an ever aocumulative 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 lifo in everlasting inoccupation. Oh, busy men, tell you of heaven where there is something to dol That is the
 meaning of the passage, "They rest not
 day nor night' ill the lazy sense of rest ing.
 l speak these words on the changes in heaven and the new improvements in heaven also because I want 10 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 a 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 Oakwood, Laurel Hill or Mount Auburn than you in holiday at tire, having seated yourself at ban quet, can be said to be in 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 1t, 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 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 a 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.
 
 Instead of being far off, it comes down
 just now, and it puts it's arms around our necks and we feel its breath on our faces. It melts the frigid splendor of the conventional heaven into domestic scene. It comes very close to us. If we had our choice in heaven, whom would we first see? Rather than look at the great potentates of heaven we would meet our loved ones. l want to see Moses and Paul and Joshua, but l would great deal rather see my father, who went away 80 years ago. want to see the great Bible heroines, Deborah and Hannah and Abigail, but would rather see my mother than to see the archangel.
 I do not think it was superstitious
 when, one Wednesday night, stood by deathbed within a few blocks of the church where I preached, and on the same street, and saw one of the aged Christians of the church going into
 glory. After I had prayed with her l said to her: "We have all loved you
 very much and will always cherish your memory in the Christian church. You
 will see my son before l see him, and l wish you would give him our. love. She said, "I will, will," and in 20 minutes she was in heaven-the last words she ever spoke. It was a swift
 message 10 the skies. If you had your choice between riding in a heavenly chariot and occupying the grandeet pal are "a heaven, and sitting on the throne snh ha of nA md not seeing your departed loved ones, and on the other hand dwelling in tbe humblest place in heaven, without crown or throne. and without garland
 and without scepter, yet having your loved ones around you, you would choose the latter. l say these things be-
 cause want you to know 1t is do-
 mestio heaven, and consequently it is all the time improving. Every one that goes up makes it a brighter place, and the attractions are increasing month by
 month and day by day, and heaven, so
 vastly more of heaven, thousand
 times more of heaven, than it used to
 be, will be better heaven yet. Oh, l
 say this to intensity your anticipation! !!
 The Jubilee.
 l enter heaven one day. It is almost empty. I enter the temples of worship,
 and there are no worshipers. I walk
 down the street, and there are no pas sengers. I go into the orchestra, and
 find the instruments are suspended In the baronial halls of heaven, and the great organs of eternity, with multi
 tudinous banks of keys, are closed. But I see shining one at the gate, as though he were standing on guard, and say: Sentinel, what does this mean!
 thought heaven was populous city. Has there been some great plague sweep
 ing off the population?' Have you
 not heard the news?" says the sentinel.
 "There is world burning, there is
 great oonflagrstion out yonder, and all
 heaven has gone out to look at the con- flagration and take the victims out of
 the ruins. This is the day for which all
 other days are made. This is the judg-
 mentl This morning all the chariots,
 and the cavalry, and the mounted in-
 fantry rumbled and galloped down the
 sky" After I had listened to the sen
 tinel 1 looked off over the battlements,
 and I saw that the fields of air were
 bright with blazing world. I said.
 "Yes yes, this must be the judgment,
 and while I stood there I heard the
 rumbling of wheels and the clattering
 of hoofs, and the roaring of many
 voices, and then I saw the coronets and
 plumes and banners, and saw that all
 heaven was coming back again-coming
 to the wall, coming to the gate, and the
 multitude that went off in the morning
 was augmented by vast multitude
 caught up alive from the earth,
 and a vast multitude of the resur-
 rooted bodies of the Christian dead,
 leaving the cemeteries and the ab-
 beys and the mausoleums and the
 graveyards of the earth empty. Process