The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1902-04-10


sation. The multitudes of men and
women who got no crown on earth
we will want to see them when they
get their crown in heaven. I tell you
heaven will have no more half hours
to spare.
Besides that, heaven is full Of
children. They are in the vast ma
jority. 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 min
utes occurred. Its population has
quadrupled, sextupled, centupled.
Heaven has more on hand, more of
rapture, more of knowledge, more of
REORGANIZATION, more OF wor-
ship. 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!
Ny 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. The
only part of eternity that was ever
measured by earthly timepiece was
measured by the minute hand Of my
text. Oh, the half hours! They decide
everything. I am not asking what
you will do with the years or months
or days of your life, but what of the
half hours? Tell me the history of
your 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 glo-
rious or baleful, inspiring or desper-
ate.
Look out for the fragments of time.
They are pieces Of eternity. The half
hour day for good books or bad
books, the half hour day for prayer
or Incidence, the half hour day for
helping others or blasting others, the
half hour before you go to business
and the half hour after you return
from business-that makes the differ
ence between the scholar and the
ignoramus, between the Christian and
the infidel, between the saint and the
demon, between triumph and catastro-
phe. between heaven and hell. The
most tremendous things Of your life
and mine were certain half hours.
The half hour when in the parsonage
OF a country minister resolved to be-
come Christian then and there, the
half hour when decided to become
a preacher Of the gospel, the half
hour when / first realized that my
son was dead, the half hour when
stood on the 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 I
stopped on Mount Calvary, the half
hour in which l 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
Will be immortal. do not query what
you will do with the twentieth CEN
fury, l 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, and during that
some OF you will receive the gospel
and make complete surrender, and
during that others Of you will make
final and fatal rejection of the full
and free and urgent and impassioned
offer OF life eternal. Oh, that the
next half hour might be the most
glorious thirty minutes of your earth
ly existence!
Far back in history great geogra-
pher stood with a sailor looking at
a globe that represented our planet,
and he pointed to place on the globe
where he thought there was an I'M
discovered continent. The undiscov-
cred continent was America. The
geographer who pointed where he
thought there was new world was
Martin Behaim and the sailor to
whom he showed it was Columbus.
This last was not satisfied until he
had picked that gem out of the sea
and set it in the crown of the worlds
geography. o We who have been sail,
ing up and down the rough seas of
sorrow and sin, let me point out to
you another continent-yea another
world-that you may yourself find,
rapturous world, and that is the
world 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 of your life and
become Christian. Pray for re-
generated spirit. l say to you, my
hearers, only God by his convicting
and converting grace can make a
Christian. but he is ready this very