The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1902-04-11
THE HEAVENLY LIFE
Its Sp1endors snd G1ories Presented
by DR.. Talmage.
It's Activity Also Brought Out-The
Immortal Ha1f-HOur When Every
thing Was SiIent-VaIuaDIe
Fragments of Time.
1902, by Louis Klopsch. n. "
Washington,

pared by DIR. Talmage before his ILL
ness, vivid glimpse of the splendors
and glories of heavenly life is pre-
sented; text, Revelation viii. 1:
There was silence in Heaven about
the space of half an hour"
The busiest place in the universe is
Heaven. 1t is the center from which
all good influences start; it is the
goal at which all good results arrive.
The Bible represents 1t as active with
wheels and wings and orchestras and
professions mounted or charioted.
But my text describes a space when
the wheels ceased to roll and the
trumPets to sound and the voices to
chant. The riders on the white
horses reined in their charges. The
doxologies were hushed and process
sions halted. The hand of arrest was
upon all the splendors. "Stop, Heav-
en!" cried an omnipotent voice, and
it stopped. For 80 minutes everything
celestial stood still. ''There was ST.
lence 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 stop as other cities for the night,
for there is no night there. 1t does
not stop for a plague, for the inhabi-
tant never says: 81 am sick" 1t
does not stop for bankruptcies, for
its inhabitants never fail. 1t does not
stop for impossible streets, for there
are no falling SHOWS or sweeping
freshets. What, then, stopped it for
80 minutes? Grotius and Prof. Stuart
think it was at the time of the de-
struction of Jerusalem. Mr.. Lord
thinks it was in the year 81, be-
tween 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.
do not know when it was, and I do
not care when it was, but of the fact
that such an interregnum of sound
took place l 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 dominion
that ever existed is that over which
stiffness was queen. For an eternity
there had not been a sound. World
making was a later day occupation.
For unima ginable ages it was a mute
universe. God was the only Being,
and as there was no one to speak to
there was no utterance. But that ST.
lence has all been broken up into
worlds, and it has become a noisy uni
verse. Worlds in upheaval, worlds in
congelation, worlds in confagration,
worlds in revolution.
If geologists are right-and 1 be-
neve 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
the hubbub are ever in progress. But
when among the supernals voice
cried: "Hushl" and for half an hour
Heaven was still, silence was hon
ored. 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 misrepre-
sented 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-
complish 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
There have been events on earth and
in Heaven that seemed to demand
whole day or whole week or whole
year for celestial consideration. If
Grotius was right and this silence
occurred at the time of the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, that scene was so
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 and
Hippicus, had been going on for a
long while, a Roman soldier, mount
ed on the shoulder of another sol
dier, hurled into the window of the
temple a frebrand, and the temple
was all afiame, and after covering
many sacrifices to the holiness of
God the building itself became sac
rifice to the rage of man. The hun
ger of the people in that city dur
ing the besiegement was so great
that as some outlaws were passing
a doorway and inhaled the odors of
food they burst open the door,
threatening the mother of the house
hold 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 be-
cause, the temple being gone, there
was nothing for them to do. Six
thousand people in one cloister were
consumed. There were 1, 100, 900 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 Diocletian per-
secutions, by which $4,000 Christians
suffered death from sword and fire
and banishment and exposure. why
did not Heaven listen throughout at