The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1902-04-17
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.

SUBJECT: The Spiendors and Olorles OF
Heavenly Life "a Glimpse of the
Kings Palace-An Impressive Half
Hour in Eternity.
WASHINGTON, D. C.-In the following
discourse, prepared by DR.. Talmage before
his illness, a vivid GLIMPSE of the splen-
doris and glories of heavenly life is pre-
was silence in heaven about the space OF
half an hour"
The busiest place in the universe is
heaven. 1t is the centre from which all
good influences start; it is the goal a;
which all good results arrive. The Bible
wings and orchestras and professions
mounted OF charioted. But my text de-
scribes a space when. the wheels ceased to
roll and the trumpets to sound and the
voices to chant The riders on the white
horses refined in their charges. The doxol-
ogies were hushed and professions halted.
The hand of arrest was upon all the splen-
tent voice, and it stopped. For thirty
minutes everything celestial stood still.
There was silence in heaven about the
space of half an hour"
From all we can learn it is the only
time heaven ever stopped. 1t does not
Is no night there. 1t does not stop for
plague, for the inhabitant never says, Il
am sick" 1t does not stop for bankrupt
cies, for its inhabitants never fail. 1t
does not stop for impossible streets, for
there are no fallen SHOWS or sweeping
treshets. What, then, stopped it for thir-
ty minutes? Grotius and Professor Stuart
think it was at the time of the destruction
of Jerusalem. Mr. Lord thinks it was in
the year 3ll, between the close of the Do
cletian persecution and the beginning OF
the wars by which Constantine gained the
throne. But that was all guess, though
a learned and brilliant guess. l do not
it was, but of the fact that such an inter
regnum of sound took place am certain.
There was silence in heaven about the
space Of half an hour"
And, first of all, we learn that God and
all heaven then honored silence. The
longest and widest domain that ever e1-
listed is that over which stiffness was
queen. For an eternity there had not
been a sound. World making was later
day occupation. For unimaginable ages
it was mute universe. God was the only
being. and as there was no one to speak
to there was no utterance. But that 81
lence has all been broken up in to worlds,
Worlds in upheaval, worlds in congela-
ton, worlds in conhagration, sworlds in
revolution.
If biologists are right-and ! believe
they are--there has not been a moment OF
silence since this world began its travels,
and the crashing and the splitting and the
uproar and the hubbub are ever in pro
gress. But when among the supernals
voice cried, "Hush!" and for half an hour
heaven was still, silence was honored. The
full power of silence many of us have yet
to learn. We are told that when Christ
was arraigned "He answered not a word"
That silence was louder than any thunder
that ever shook the world. Oftentimes
when we are assailed and misrepresented
the mightiest thing to say is to say moth
ing, and the mightiest thing to do is to do
nothing Those people who are always
rushing into print to get themselves set
right accomplish nothing but their own
chagrin. Silence! Do right and leave the
results with God. Among the grandest les
sons the world has ever learned are the
lessons of patience taught by those who
mestic or political injustice. Stronger
than any bitter or sarcastic or revengeful
answer is the patient silence.
The famous Dr. Morrison, of Chelsea,
achieved as much by his silent patience as
by his pen and tongue. lie. had asthma
that for twenty-five years brought him
ont of his couch at o'clock each morning.
In my text. heaven spared thirty min
utes, but it will never again spare one min
ute. In worship in earthly churches
where there are many to take part We
have to counsel brevity, but how will
heaven get on rapidly enough to let one
hundred and forty-four thousand 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 trill-
ion?
Not only are air the triumphs of the
past to be commemorated, 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 deific.
If my text had said there was silence in
been startled at the announcement, 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, Sc, many exciting earthly
experiences we will want to talk over, and
all the other spirits and all the ages viii
want the same, that there will be no more
opportunity for cessation.
How busy wa 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,
nurses who faced pestilence in the laza-
rettos; the railroad engineers who stayed
at their places in order to save, the train,
though they themselves persisted HUI
bert Coffin, the master miner, who, land
ing 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 wanted to go to his sick
child, and jerked the rope, for him to be
pulled up, crying. "Tell them the water
has burst in 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 digged
themselves so near out that the people
from the outside could come to their res
cue The multitudes of men and women
who got no crown on earth we will want
to see when they get their crown in heav
en-. l tell you heaven will have no more
half hours to spare.
Besides that, heaven is full of children
They are in the vast majority. No child
on earth who amounts to anything can be
kept quiet half an hour, and how are you
going to keep five hundred million of them
quiet half an hour? You know heaven is
much more of place than it was when
that recess of thirty minutes occurred
Its population has Quadrupled, sextupled