The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-02-18

collection of people has It's peculiar en- uty as well as a single human being. dear friend of mine some years ago was attending in London a great international gathering of the representatives of the Salvation Army. For hours he stood in the gallery watching the convention pro- gress. "As meeting followed meeting,' said he, "a strange spirit of consecratlon seemed to take possession of that vast assemblage. You could almost see this spirit as well as feel it. You were swept along by the holy enthusiasm of the dele gates, whether you were a Salvation Army man or not. So powerful became this spirit that a man standing near me who was not a Christian said: There must be something in Christianity. There must be something supernatural about 1t. These people are in dead earnest l can not get away from It. n Thus In heaven, when we get there, we shall all feel the spiritual electric thrill of being in close touch with hundreds and millions upon millions of soul winners. When all these vast multitudes of soul winners shall lift up their voices In praise they will lift us up. Oh, my friends, do you not re- Joice that in heaven you will spend an eternity with those who have glorified God on earth? There you shall be in touch with them in numbers. as the stars which shine forever and ever.
 An Ideal Heaven.
 But though I like today to think of the multitudes of soul winners who shall be enrolled among the inhabitants of heaven l cannot think of an ideal heaven simply as great mass of immortal souls, jostling each other on the boulevards of the New Jerusalem. I would not care for a heaven wherein every man and woman and child is to lose his individuality and cease to have affinities with other immor- tai souls Oh no, I would not want a heaven like that. believe that in heaven we shall meet multitudes of immortals who have been soul winners on earth, but l also believe that those soul winners shall keep their individualites and that the same loves of earth which made husband cling to wife and wife to husband and parents to children and children to pa- rents and friends to friends will all be there. By the stellar glory of the night I think we may infer it. For they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the Armament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever"
 The more we learn of the stars and their movements the more clearly does this appear. The unscientific man can see nothing but chaos and confusion in the stars of the heavens. As he looks up into the Armament he says: My, how many stars there are! They seem to be everywhere. There seem to be stars tumb- ling and stars jostling and stars push ing. Here is falling star and wonder that mass of white is collection of stars so close together that they seem to be a perfect mob of stars running riot" But as he goes on thus an astronomer by his side says: Nay. friend, you are wrong The stars may seem to you to be running riot but that is not so. The British army upon the march toward Waterloo, with the Duke of Wellington for it's command CT never was more orderly or had sterner discipline than the stars under divine Each star has it's appointed place. each moves in it's own circle, and so systematic are these movements that astronomers can calculate down to the very minute when a star will pass a given place or disappear" Thus we find that the Armament of the heavens is a great cosmos. It Is a collection of stars gathered Into groups, each star having its own place in a separate group with other stars.
 This was conclusvely proved by Will liam Herschel, the great English astron- omer. Herschel for years studied the laws which bound star to star. Tn his day no , man knew more about them than he did |
  sical astronomy he was pioneer" wrote his biographer; 'he was the virtual l founder of sidereal science. As an ex- l plorer of the heavens he had but one | rival his own son." After years of | study, William Herschel evolved this l beautiful theory of the heavens, which, l I believe, is the symbol of our future ! celestial existence. The ancient Chal- | deans first gathered the stars into groups l or constellations. They had the Dipper and Orion and the Bear and the Bull | the Ram, the Twins, the Waterpot. the Scales, the Fish, the Sea Goat and others too numerous to mention. But 1t remained i for the modern astronomer to show how | these various groups were related. Her 1 schel mapped the motion of these groups | around their individual centers; then he ! went higher and higher in his astrono- | mical theory, and he showed how these l centers moved around other centers and these other centers in turn swing around other centers; then at last he swings all | these groups and consultations and solar systems and all these centers around one | great center, which he calls the great white throne of God" Cannot you grasp the parable?
 They Shall Shine as Stars.
 Tn heaven all the soul winners of earth shall shine as the stars forever and ever But these stars shall not be simply a great multitude of stars shining a mass of light. Each star will be the member of certain group. What is a group? Why, the family. We shall shine like Moses and Joshua and Paul and Peter. Yes, but we shall shine alongside of our fathers and mothers and husbands and children. In groups-in family groups-we shall be. o God, I thank Thee that in heaven my loved ones will be by my side as they lived by my side on earth All the soul winners shall be there, but my dear ones shall live as close to me as though our in heaven were the only man. sion built upon the Boulevard of Gold down near to the Beautiful Gate.
 But there is another fact about these