The Iola register., 1902-04-11
Its Splendors and Glories Presented
by DR.. Talmage.
ktn Activity Also Brought Out-The
EnamortaI Half-Hour When Every
thing Was ssiIent-VnIuabIe
Fragments of Time.

'ented; text, Revelation viii, 1:
There was silence in Heaven about
he space of half an hour"
The busiest place in the universe is
ieaven. 1t is the center from which
III good influences start; it is the
GAL at which all good results arrive.
he Bible represents it as active with
heels and wings and orchestras and
tocessions mounted or charioted.
ut my text describes a space when
le wheels ceased to roll and the
'umpets to sound and the voices to
ant. The riders on the white
NJ rises reined in their charges. The
y xologies were hushed and process
ms halted. The hand of arrest was
on all the splendors. "Stop, Heav-
Y" cried an omhipotent voice, and
stopped. For 30 minutes everything
CELESTIAL stood still. There was 81
Hence in Heaven about the space of
half an hour"
From all we can learn it is the only
time Heaven ever stopped. 1t does
mot stop as other cities for the night,
for there is no night there. 1t does
mot stop for a plague, for the inhabi-
tant never says 81 am sick" 1t
does not stop for bankruptcies, for
fts inhabitants never fail. 1t does not
stop for impossible streets, for there
are no falling SHOWS or sweeping
freshets. What, then, stopped it for
o minutes? Grotius and Prof. Stuart
y think it was at the time of the de-
stryction of Jerusalem. Mr. Lord
thinks it was in the year 311, be-
twdEn the close of the Diocletian per-
= secution' and the beginning of the
wars by which Constantine gained
the throne. But that was all a guess,
though learned and brilliant guess.
j do not know when it was, and do
not care when it was, but of the fact
that such an interregnum of sound
pok place | am certain. There was
Hence in Heaven about the space of
Aalf an hour"
VI And, first of all. we learn that God
Bjnd all Heaven then honored silence.
fe longest and widest dominion
lat ever existed is that over which
Illness was queen. For an eternity
= ere had not been a sound. World
king was a later day occupation.
unimaginable ages it was a mute
serse. God was the only Being,
as there was no one to speak to
e was no utterance. But that ST.
has all been broken up into
orlds, and it has become a noisy uni
i,rse. Worlds in upheaval, worlds in
iongelation, worlds in conflagration,
worlds in revolution.
If geologists are right-and l be-
Aeve they are-there has not been a
moment of silence since this world
began its travels, and the crushing
and the splitting and the uproar and
4 the hubbub are ever in progress But
when among the supernals a voice
] cried: "Hush!" and for half an hour
Heaven was still, silence was hon
ored. The full power of silence many
of us have vet to learn. We are told
that when Christ was arraigned "IIe
answered not word" That silence
was louder than any thunder that
ever shook the world. Oftentimes
when we are assailed and misrepre-
, scented the mightiest thing to say is
TO say nothing and the mightiest
thing to do is to do nothing. Those
people who are always rushing into
print to get themselves set right ac-
compiish nothing but their own cha
grin. Silence! Do right and leave
the results with God.
Learn also from my text that
Heaven must be an eventful and ac-
tive place from the fact that it could
afford only 30 minutes of recess.
There have been events on earth and
I'm Heaven that seemed to demand a
whole day or whole week or whole
year for celestial consideration. II
5Grotius was right and this silence
occurred at the time of the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, that scene was SC
awful and so prolonged that the in.
habitants of Heaven could not have
done Justice to it in many weeks
After fearful besiegement Of the two
fortresses of Jerusalem Antonia an6
Hippicus, had been going on for q
long while. a Roman soldier, mount
ed on the shoulder of another sol
dier, hurled into the window of the
temple a firebrand, and the tempt,
was all afame, and after covering
MANY sacrifices to the holiness o.
God the building itself became sac
rifce to the rage of man. The hun
ger of the people in that city dur
ing the besiegement was so grea
that as some outlaws were passing
a doorway and inhaled the odors o
food they burst open the door
threatening the mother of the house
hold with death unless she gave then
some food, and she took them asid
and showed them that it was he
own child she was cooking for tn
rhastly repast. Six hundred priest
were destroyed on Mount Zion be
cause, the temple being gone, ther
was nothing for them to do. 81,
thousand people in one cloister wer
- nhnrn ,nnrn 1 100 Nnl dom