The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1902-04-08

incntnS or days OF your life. but what
OF the half hours? Tell me the history
Of our half hours and | will tell you
the story Of your whole life on earth
and the story OF your whole life in eter-
nifty. The right or wrong things you
can think in thirty minutes. the right
or wrong things you can say in thirty
minutes. the right or wrong things you
can do in thirty minutes are glorious or
baleful. inspiring or desperate.
Look out for the fragments OF time. !
They are pieces OF eternity. 1t was
the half hours between shoeing horses
that made Elihu Burritt the learned
blacksmith. the half hours between
professional calls as a physician that
made Abercrombie the Christian phi
losOpher. the half hours between his
duties as schoolmaster that made Sal
mon f. Chase chief justice. the half
hours between shoe lasts that made
Henry Wilson vice president OF the
United States, the half hours between
canaIboats that made James A. Gar
| field president. The half hour a day
for good books or bad books. the half
hour n day for prayer or Incidence, the
half hour a day for helping others or
blasting others, the half hour before
you go TO business and the half hour
after y return from business-that
make the difference between the schol-
or and the isnoramus. between the
Christian Il the infidel. between the
saint and the demon. between triumph
and catastrophe, between heaven and
he'll. The most tremendous things OF
your life and mine were certain half
hours. The half hour when in the par
sonage of q country minister I re-
solved to become q Christian then aud
there. the half hour when | decided to
become 4 preacher of the gospel. the
half hour when | first realized that my
son was dead. the half hour when |
stood on tli top of my house in Ok
ford street and saw our church burn,
the half hour in which | entered Je-
rusalem, the half hour in which | stop
ped on Mount Calvary. the half hour
in which | stood on Mars hill and
about ten or fifteen other half hours
are the chief times of my life. You
may forget the name of the exact years
or most of the important events of
your existence, but those half hours,
like the half hour Of my text. VIII be
immortal. | 90 not query what you
will 60 with the twentieth century. |
do not query what you will do with
this year, but what will you do with
the next half hour? Upon that hinges
your destiny, Il during that some of
you will receive the gospel and make
| cOmnlptp SuPrpn6ar and d1rinu that
others of you will make final and IA
tai rejection of the full and free and
urgent and impassioned offer of life
eternal. Oh. that the mex half hour
might be the most glorious thirty min
utes Of your earthly existence!
Far back in history a great geogra-
pher stood with a sailor looking at a
globe that represented our planet, and
he pointed to a place on the globe
where he thought there was an undis-
covered continent. The undiscovered
continent was America. The geogra-
pher who pointed where he thought
there was a new world was Martin
Behaim and the sailor to whom he
showed it was Columbus. This last
was not satisfied till he had picked
Nho SNh " VI ~ IL = y LIZ
the crown Of the worlds geography.
o ye who have been sailing up and
down the rough seas Of sorrow and sin,
let me point out to you another con
tinent-yea, another world-that you
may yourself find. a rapturous world,
and that is the world q half hour of
which we now study! Oh. set sail
for it, Here is the ship and here are
the compasses. In other words. make
this half hour the grandest half hour
J Of your life and become q Christian.
Pray for a regenerated spirit. Louis
XIV, while walking in the garden at
Versailles. met Mansard, the great ar
chitect. and the architect took off his
hat before the king. Put on your
hat" said the king. for the evening is
damp and cold" And Mansard, the
architect, the rest of the evening kept
on his hat The dukes and marquises,
standing with bare heads before the
king. expressed their surprise at Man.
sard, but the king said, Il can make
duke or a marquis, but only God can
make n Mansard." And I say to you.
my hearers. only God by his convict
ing and converting grace a make a
Christian, but he is ready this very
half hour to accomplish it
"Forever and Ever"
Again, my text suggests a way OF
studying heaven so that we can better
understand it. The word eternity"
that we can handle so much is an i'm
measurable world. Knowing that we
could not understand that word, the
Bible uses it only once. We say "for-
ever and ever" But how long is ''for-
ever and everT l am glad that my
text puts under our eye heaven for
thirty minutes. AS when you see a
great picture. you put a shee Of paper
into a scroll and look through it or join
your forefnger to your thumb and look
through the circle between, and the
picture becomes more intense, so this
masterpiece Of heaven by St John is