Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1892 — TALMAGE IN LONDON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE IN LONDON.

How the Blest Will Spend Eternity in Heaven. A Vivid Description of the Heavenly Hosts as Seen by St. John—Ths Music of Heaven. Dr. Talmage is spending a very busy season in England. Not only in the London churches, but in the provinces, enormous crowds have gathered to hear the eloquent American preacher. Since his arrival he has preached seven times each week.. His text last Sunday was Revelations vii., 9, 10. He said: •>’" It is impossible to come in contact with anything grand or beautiful in art, nature or religion without being profited and elevated. We go Into the art gallery and our soul meets

the soul of the painter, and we hear the hum of his forests and the clash of his conflicts, the cloud blossoming of the sky and the foam blossoming of the ocean; and we come out of the gallery better men than when we went-ia;"'' '’" --Opthe same principle'it is profitable to Ihink of heaven, and look off upon that landscape of joy and light which St. John depicts; the rivers of gladness, the trees of life, the thrones of power; the comminglings of everlasting love. I wish this morning that I could bring heaven from the list of intangibles and make it seem to you as it really is—the great, fact of all history, the depot of all ages, the parlor of God's universe. -1 shall speak to you of the glorified in heaven—their number, their antecedents, their dress, their symbols an d their song. But how shall 1 begin by telling you of the numbers of "Those in heaven-? —-I simply take the pfainianijouaeement of tuxt rr rt~ is “a great multitude, which no man can number.’.’. Every few years in this country we take a census of the population, and it'is very easy to tell how many people there are in a city or nation, but who shall give the census of the great nation of the saved? Suppose they were gathered in one great audience room; how overwhelming i the spectacle I But it would give ho idea of the great audience room of heaven - the multitudes that bow down and that lift up their hosannas. Why, they come from all the chapels, from all the cathedrals, «from all sects, from all ages; they who prayed in splendid liturgy, and those who in broken sentences uttered the wish of broken hearts—from Grace church and Sailor^’-Bethel, from under the shapeless rafters and from under high sprung arch—“a great multitude, that no man.can number. ”

But my subject advances, and tells ; you of their antecedents, “of all na- | tions an|i Kindreds and tongues.” ; Some of them spoke Scotch, Jrish, German. English, Spanish, Tamil, Choctaw/ Burmese. ' After men have long in the land you can tell by .their accentuation from what nationality they came; and I suppose..in the great throng around the throne it will not be difficult to tell from what part of the earth they came. These reaped Sicillian waterfields inid“tti’O’S"©"ptekecTcdTforT"from"~po"ds. These under blistering skies gath-, ered tamarinds . and yams. Those crossed the desert on camels and > those glanced over the snow, drawn ’ by Siberian dogs, and these milked the goats far up in the swiss prags. i These faught the walrus and white i bear, in the regions of everlasting j snow and those heard the song i pf the ! fiery winged birds in African thick- ! ets. They were white. They were i black. They were red. They were ' copper color. _From all lauds, from 1 ill ages. They were plunged into Austrian dungeons They passed through Spanish inquisitions. , They were confined in London Tower. They fougjjt with beasts in the amphitheater. They were Moravians. They were Waldenses. They were Albigenses. They were Scotch Coveaaatdrs. They were Sandwich Islanders.

A,y subject advances, and tells you of the dress of those in heaven. The object of dress in this world is not only to veil the body, but to -dorn if. The God who dresses up the spring morning with a blue ribbon of sky around the brow and earings of dew drops hung from treee branch and mantle of crimson cloud j lung over the shoulder and the Vio- > lotted Slippers fdrher feet—l krtow that .God does not' despise beautiful j apparel. Well, what shall we wear in heaven? “I saw a great multitude clothed in white robes.’’ It is white! In this world we hadjsometimes to have-op working apparel? Bright and lustrous garments would be ridiculously out •* place sweltering amid forges, or mixing paints, or plastenwg ceilings, or binding books. In this world we must have-the 1 apparel sometimes, and we care not h«w coarse it is. It is appropricte, but when all the toil of earth is past and there is no more drudgery and no more weariness we shall stand before the throne robed lin white. On earth we sometimes had to wear mourning apparel—bl&ck scarf for the arm, black veil for the face, black gloves tor the hands, black band for the hat. Abraham mousing for Sarah; Isaac mourning for Rebecca; Rechel mourning for her children; David mourning for Absalom: Mary mourning fc» Lazarus./ • EvSry second of every minute of every hour of every day a hosrt breaks. The earth from zone to zone aid fr«o pole to pole is cleft with sepal-

chral rent, and tne earth can easily afford to bloom and blossom when it is so ricit with moldering life. Graves! graves! graves' But when these bereavements have all passed, and there are no more graves to dig aud no more coffins to make and no more sorrow to suffer, we shall pull off this mourning. They look back upon all the trials through which they have passed, the battles they have fought, the burdens they carried, the misrepresentations they suffered, and because they are delivered from all these they stand before God waving their palms. They come to the feet of Christ and they lookup into his face, and they remember his sorrows, and they remember his pain, aud they remember his groans, aud they say: “Why, I was saved by that Christ. He pardoned my s.-as, he soothed my sorrows.” and standing there they shall be exultant, waving their palms. My subject makes another advance-

ment and speaks of the song they sing. In this world we have plaintive songs —songs . tremulous with sorrow, songs dirgeful for the dead; but ’ in heaven there will be no sighing of winds, no wailing of anguish; no weeping symphony. The tamest song will be hallelujah—the dullest tune a ‘triumphal march. Joy among the cherubim! J©y among the seraphim! Joy among the ransomed! forever! .- On earth the music in churches is often poor, because there is no interest in it or because there is no harmony] Some would not sing, some, could not sing, some sang too high, some sang too low, some sang by fits and starts, but in the great audience of the redeemed on high all yoices. will be. accordant, and the man who on earth co uld nottell a pl an tation melody from the “Dead March in Saul” will lift an anthenrthat the Mendelssohns and Beethovens and the Schumanns of earth never imagined, and you may stand through all eternity aud listen, and there will not be one discord in the great anthem that forever rolls up against the great heart of God. It will not be a solo, it will not be a duet, it will not be a quintet, but an innumerable host before the throne crying, “SaL' vation unto our God and unto the Lamls!” They crowd all the temples, they bend over the battlements, they fill all the heights and depths, and lengths and breadths of heaven with thejr hosannas. They sing a star song, 'saying, “Who is he that guided us through the thick night, and when all other lights went Out arose in the sky the morning star, pouring light on the soul’s darkness?’’- And the chorus will come in. “Christ, the morning star, shining on the soul's-: dark- ! ness.” They will sing a floWer song, i saving, “Who is he that brightened all our way, and breathed sweetness | upon our soul, and bloomed through I frost and tetnpest ?” and the chorus will come in, “Christ, tlie. lily of the valley, blooming through frdst and tempest. ” They sing a water song, saying, “W T ho is he that gleamed to us from the frowning crag, and lightened the darkest ravine of trouble, and brought cooling to the temples, and refreshment to the lip. and was a fountain in the midst of i the wilderness?” and then the chorus will come in, “Christ, the fountain Tn'the'mi cist7sT"tTfe"wilde”. - n es s. ’ 7 " My friends, will you join that anthem? Shall we make rehearsal this morning?- If we cannot sing that song on earth we isll not be able to sing’ it in heaven. Can it be Mia* our good friends in that land will walk all through that great throng of which I speak, looking for us and not finding us? Will,they come down to the gate and ask if we have passed through, and not find us reported as having come? Will they look through the folios of eteral-light and find our names unrecorded? Is all this a representation of a land we shall never see —of a song we shall never sing?