Connecticut western news., 1901-01-17
ENTERING THE GATE.
DR. TAlMAGE TELLS HOW HEAVENS
 PORTAL WILL OPEN

Exu1tant Admiration VIII Awht Those Who Have Lived For Others, While the Bigot and the Penurtous Will Barely Squeeze Through.
 WASHINGTON, Jan 13.-In a very novel way Dr. Talmage in his discourse describes what may be expected in the next world by those who here bend all their energies in the right direction; text, II Peter 1, II, "For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundant ly."
 Different styles of welcome at the gate of heaven are here suggested. We all hope to enter that supernal capital through the grace that Is ready to save even the chief of sinners, but not now. No man healthy of body and mind wants to go now. The man who hurls himself out of this life is either an agnostic or is demented or finds life insufferable and does not care where he lands. This is the best world we ever got into, and we want to stay here as long as God will let us stay. But when the last page of the volume of our earthly life Is ended we want enrolment in heavenly citizenship. We want to get In easily. We do not want to be challenged at the gate and asked to show our passports. We do not want the gatekeeper in doubt as to whether we ought to go in at all. We do not want to be kept In the portico of the temple until consultation Is made as to where we came from and te,s 70 fp admit us, lest we be discord in the eternal harmonies or lower the spirit of heavenly worship. When the Apos- tie Peter in the text addresses the peo- pie, For so an entrance shall be ad- ministered unto you abundantly,' he implies that some will find admission into heaven easy, rapturous and ac- clamatory, while others will have to squeeze through the gate of heaven, if they get in at all. They will arrive anxious and excited and apprehensive and wondering whether 1t will be "Comep or "Gow The Bible speaks of such persons as scarcely saved" and In another place as saved as by fire" and In another place as escaped ''by the skin of the teeth"
 A Difficult Entrance.
 Carrying out the suggestion of my text, propose to show you what class es of Christians will get into heaven with a hard push and those who will bound in amid salutations infinite. In the first class put that man who gets into the kingdom of God at the close of a life all given to worldliness and sin Years ago he made the resolution that he would serve himself and serve the world until body, mind and soul were exhausted and then, just before going out of this life, would seek God and prepare to enter heaven. He carries out his resolution. He genuinely re- pents the fast day or the last hour or the last minute of his life. He takes the last seat in the last car of the last train bound heavenward. His released and immortal spirit ascends. Not one wing bears down toward him with welcome. No sign of gladness at his arrival None there obligated to him for kindness done or aims distributed or spiritual help administered. He will find some place to stay, but I do not envy that man his heaven. He got in, but 1t was not an abundant entrance.
 Sometimes in our pulpits we give a wrong turn to the story of the dying thief to whom Christ said, This day shalt thou be with me in paradise" Christ that pardoned him in the last hour, but do not let us admire the dy ing thief. When he was arrested, think his pockets were full of stolen coin, and the coat he had on his back was not his own. He stole right on un- til he was arrested for his crimes. He repented and through great mercy arose to paradise, but he was no exam pie to follow. What a gigantic mean ness to devote the wondrous equipment of brain and nerve and muscle and bone with which we are endowed, these miracles of sight and hearing and speech, to purposes unworthy or pro fane and then, through nasty repent ance at the last, enter heaven. Cheat ing God all ones lifetime and then talk ing advantage of bankrupt law and made free of all liabilities. I should think that some men would be asham- ed to enter heaven.
 Grace Saves the Bigot.
 Again, the bigot will not have what my text calls an abundant entrance. He has his bedwarfed opinion as to what all must believe and do in order to gain celestial residence. He has his creed in one pocket and his catechism in another pocket, and it may be a good creed and a good catechism, but he uses them as sharp swords against those who will not accept his theories. You must be baptized in his way or come to him through apostolic success sion or be foreordained of eternity or you are in an awful way. He shrivels up and shrivels up and becomes more splenetic until the time of his departure is at hand. He has enough of the salt of grace to save him, but his entrance into heaven will be something worth watching. What do they want with him in heaven, where they have all gone Into eternal catholicity, one grand commingling of Methodists and Bap- lists and Episcopalians and Lutherans and Congregationalists and Presby- terians and a score of other denomina- tions just as good as any have men, tioned2 They all join in the halleluiah chorus, accompanied by harpers on their harps and trumpeters on their trumpets, Worthy Is the Lamb that was slain to receive blessing and riches and honor and glory and power"
 The bigot ascends with just enough grace to save him. AS he comes up to the shining gate he sees standing in- side of 1t some whom he used to meet every Sunday morning on the street going to some other church of some other denomination, and he cries out: Are you there? I never expected 10 see you In such glorious place. You were all wrong in your religious theo- ries on earth and in your form of church government. How did you get in?" Saved by grace" is the heaven ly reply, saved by grace" The bigot Is embarrassed and feels for his creed