The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1907-10-29

great city were stretched out IL
straight line they would reach nearly
twice across the American continent,
from San Francisco 10 New York,
They would be more than three times
the distance betyeen London and st.
Petersburg
DR. G. 4. Goodbart tells us about
the vast size Of the apocaiyptic vision
Of st. John when he says, Babylon
was 4 great city. about three times the
size of modern London. Yet, compar-
ing the measurements which Herodo-
tus gives of Babylon with the one st.
John gives of the New Jerusalem. we
find that the latter would contain ten
thousand of the former" Can your
mind grasp what DR.. Goodhart means
"Well.' says some one, do you lit
orally mean that the New Jerusalem
which st. John saw had any such
dimensions as those? Even If We
could conceive of ei I. Idle and
so long we could not i:i.;- 50 it hav
ing q height from base to ..nuinit OF
10000 miles" No, you must remem-
Der that this was vision. AMI us such
was symbolical. The twelve gates
correspond to the twelve tribes of
Israel and to the twelve apostles. The
furlongs and the foundation stones are
other sets of twelve. | think the apos-
tie intended us to learn from the great
cube that the heavenly city was big
enough to contain all people. of all IA
tons, of all generations, of all times
who have been and will be cleansed
from sin by Christ's atoning blood. !
want to show that provision is made
for the widest acceptance of the invi
tation "Whosoever will" and is so big
that it will take in every sinner who
comes and bows at the foot of the
cross and who says. as did the pub
lican of old. God be merciful to me a
sinner" And 1.-The length and the
breadth and the height of it are equal"
The Banquet Hall.
l was never more impressed with
Christ's parable of the banquet hall OF
heaven than after l had studied this
revelation of st. John. The banquet
tables are spread. The invited guests
have refused to come. Then the mas
ter of the house said to his servants:
go out quickly into the streets and
lanes of the city and bring in hither
the poor and the MANNED and the halt
and the blind. And the servants said.
Lord, it is done as thou hast com
manded, and yet there is ROOM" Of
course there is room. There is always
room in heaven. Why. heaven is so
big that Gods messengers of all gen
erations can go into the highways and
the hedges and spread broadcast the
gospel invitation everywhere, and yet
1here will be room. Room in heayeni
Room for every one that comes III
Christ's name! Room, unlimited room.
'Whosoever will. let him come and
drink of the water of life" Room in
the many mansions Of the Fathers
house. And "the length and the
breadth and the height of it are equal"
But there is another fact which ought
to impress you about the wall of heay-
en-. and that is it has twelve swinging
gates, and they are all gates of pearl.
These gates are divided into four
groups. There are three gates in the
south wall, three gates for the north
wall, three gates for the east wall.
three gates for the west wall. What
do all these gates stand for? They
mean that God has an unlimited num-
Der of ways for us TO get into heaven.
1t does not matter what gate we enter
by as long as we come through gate
sprinkled with Christ's blood. And
yet there are some people so blinded
by sectarian bigotry that they think
no soul can get into heaven except
through one gate, and that the narrow
way Of their own church door.
The Different Gates.
Some time ago was speaking along
this line in my prayer meeting room.
When I had finished and thrown open
the service for general discussion, a
gentleman arose and spoke as follows:
Il am Congregational minister am
glad to hear your pastor call attention
to the fact that the walls Of heaven
have twelve gates. I am glad that l.
as a member of a different Christian
denomination, can meet and sing and
pray with you tonight. Christ said,
Other sheep l have which are not of
this fold There are many churches.
many folds, but we all follow the one
Divine Shepherd. Once the sectarian
walls were built so high that the diff
ferent churches could not see over
them Then time passed on, and they
were lowered little, so that the mem
bers of the different churches could
throw brickbats at one another. But.
thank God, tonight those walls are low
cred so that we can reach over them
and grasp each others hands as Chris
tan brothers"
"Amen.' / said to that. But while
my brother minister was talking !
kept asking myself this question, "Have
those sectarian walls been lowered so
much everywhere that all churches
have ceased to throw brickbats at each
other?" I believe not, for when that