Milford chronicle., 1902-04-11

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 It
was her own child she was cooking for
the CHASTITY repast. Six hundred priests
were destroyed on Mount Zion because,
the temple being gone, there was moth
ing for them to do. Six thousand peO-
pie in one cloister were consumed.
There were 100000 dead according
to JOsephus. Grotius thinks that this
was the cause Of silence in heaven for
half an hour If Mr.. Lord was right,
and this silence was during the Diocle
tian prosecutions. by which $4,000
Christians suffered death from sword
and fire and Punishment and exposure.
why did not heaven listen throughout
81 leias one Of those awful yearsf No!
Thirty minutes! The fact is that the
celestial programme is so crowded
with spectacle that 1t can afford only
one recess in all eternity, and that for
short space. While there are great
choruses in which all heaven can join.
each soul there has a story Of divine
mercy peculiar to itself and it must
be solo. How can heaven get
through with all its recitatives. with
all its cantatas, with all its grand
marches. with all its victories? Eter-
nifty is too short to utter all the praise.
In my text heaven spared thirty min
utes, but it will never again spare one
minute. In worship in earthly church
es where there are many to take part
we have 10 counsel breyity, but how
will heaven get on rapidly enough to
let one hundred and forty-four thOus
sand get through each with his own
story and then one hundred and forty
four million and then one hundred and
forty-fOur billion and then one hundred
and forty-fOur trilliOn? Not only are
all the triumphs of the past to be COM
memorated, but all the triumphs to
come. Not only what we now know of
| God, but what we will know of him
after everlasting study of the deifc. If
my text had said there was silence in
heaven for thirty days. would not
have been startled ut the announce
ment, but it indicates thirty minutes.
Why, there will be so many friends to
hunt up, so many of the greatly good
and useful that we will want to see, so
many of the inscrutable things of earth
we will need explained, so many eXcit-
ing earthly experiences we will want
to talk over, and all the other spirits
and all the ages will want the same,
that there will be no more opportunity
for cessation. How busy we will be
kept in having pointed out to us the
heroes and herOines that the world
never fully appreciated-the yellow
| fever and cholera doctors who died. not
| dying from their posts; the female
nurses who faced pestilence in the laza-
rettOs; the railroad engineers who stay.
ed at their places in order to save the
train, though they themselves persisted.
| Hubert Coffin. the master miner, who,
| landing from the bucket at the bottom
! of the mine just as he heard the waters
rush in and when one jerk Of the rope
would have lifted him into safety, put
! in the bucket blind miner who want
| ed to go to his sick child and jerked
the rope for him to be pulled up, cry
/
and we are probably lost. but we will
seek refuge at the other end of the
| right gallery" and then giving the com.
mand to the other miners till they dig
ged themselves so near out that the
people from the outside could come to
their rescue. The multitudes of men
and women who got no crown on earth
we will want to see when they get their
crown in heaven ! tell you heaven will
have no more half hours TO spare.
Besides that, heaven is full of chill
dren. They are in the vast majority.
No child on earth who amounts to any
thing can be kept quiet half an hour,
and how are you going to keep five hun
drPd million Of them quiet half an houri
You know heaven is much more of a
place than it was when that recess of
thirty minutes occurred Its pOpula.
ton has Quadrupled. sextupled. cen.
tupled. Heaven has more on hand
more of rapture, more of knowledge
more Of REORGANIZATION. more OF
worship The most thrilling place we
have ever been In is stupid compared
with that. and. If we now have no time
TO spare. we will then have no eternity
to spare. Silence in heaven only half
an hour!
That Immortal Half Hour.
My subject also impreSses me with
the Immortality OF half hour. That
half hour mentioned in my text is more
widely known than any other period In
the calendar of heaven. None of the
whole hours of heaven is measured
, off, none Of the years. none of the cen
turtles. OF the millions of ages pas
and the millions of ages to come mo-
one is especially measured off in til,
Bible. But the half hour of my text il
made immortal. The only part Of eter
nifty that was ever measured by earth
ly timepiece was measured by the min
, ute hand of my text. Oh, the half hours
They decide everything. l am not ask
ing what you will do with the years Oh
months or days of your life, but wha
, of the half hours? Tell me the history
of your half hours and l will tell yol
, the story of your whole life on eartl
and the story of your whole life in eter
nifty. The right or wrong things yOl
can think in thirty minutes, the RICH
or wrong things you can say in thirt!
minutes the right or wrong things yol
4 can do in thirty minutes are glorious o
baleful, inspiring or desperate.
:. Look out for the fragments Of time
: They are pieces of eternity. 1t wa
= the half hours between shooting horse
that made Elihu Burritt the learne,
blacksmith, the half hours between
professional calls as a physician tina
made AbercrOmbie the Christian phi
lOsopher. the half hours between hi
e duties as schOOlmaster that made Sa
le mon F. Chase chief justice, the hal
d hours between shoe lasts that mad
n Henry Wilson vice president of tn
ID United States. the half hours betwee
?! canaIhOats that made james A. Gan
r field president The half hour q da
rs for good books or bad books. the hal
re hour day for prayer or Incidence, th
C half hour a day for helping others c
blasting others, the half hour befOr
you go to business and the half hOU
n after you return from business-thi
e makes the difference between the scho
y er and the ignopamus, between til
re Christian and the infidel, between Ii
N saint and the demon, between trump
d and catastrophe, between heaven an
nj hell. The most tremendous things
ht your life and mine were certain ha
m