Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1902-04-11
HEAVENLY LIFE.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Says the BUSIEST
Place in the Universe is Heaven.
A Glimpse Of the Kings Palaee-An Impress
i've Half Hesr Ia Eteraity.

discourse, prepared by DR.. Talmage before
his illness a vivid glimpse of the splen'
doris and glories of heavenly life is pre-
sented; text, Revelation viii, l, Ihere
was silence in heaven about the space Oh
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 at
which all good results arrive. The Bible
represents it as active with wheels and
wings and orchcstras and PROFESSIONS
mounted or 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-
dor. stop heaven!" cried an omnipo-
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
stop as other cities for the night, for there
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
freshets. 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 81, between the close of the Dio.
cletian persecution and the beginning OF
the wars by which Constantine gained the
throne. But that was all guess, though
learned and brilliant guess. l do not
know when it was and do not care when
it was, but of the fact that such an inter
regnum 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 domain that ever ex-
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,
and it has become noisy universe.
Worlds in upheaval, worlds in corgela.
ton, worlds in conhagration, worlds in
revolution.
If biologists are right-and I believe
they are-there has not been 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 word"
That silence was louder than any thunder
that ever shook the world. Oftentimes
I'D nd foH
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 owr
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
endured uncomplainingly personal or do
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. He had asthma
that for twenty-five years brought him
out of his couch at 2 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 6!ITse rev but how ". will
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 oil
Him after everlasting study of the deifc
If my text had said there was silence in
heaven for thirty days, l would not have
been startled at the announcement, but il
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, so many exciting earthly
experiences we will want to talk over, and
all the other spirits and all the ages will
want the same, that there will be no more
opportunity for cessation.
How busy we will be kept in having
pointed out to us the heroes and heroinei
that the world never fully appreciated
not flying from their posts; the female
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 60 to his sick
child, and jerked the rope for him to be
ba boz
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-. 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 ia
much more of place than it was when
that recess of thirty minutes occurred.
Its population has quadrupled, sextupled,
centupled.
Heaven has more on hand, more of rap
ture, more of knowledge, more of inter.
communication, more of worship. 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 heav.
en- only half an hour!
My subject also impresses me with the
Immortality of half hour. That half
hour mentioned in my text is more widely