Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1896 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

THE PREACHER DESCRI&ES EMPLOYMENTS OF THE BLEST. Each Saved Soul, Each Great Painter, Each Great Scientist Laboring in the Great Workshop of Paradise—Grand Sociality—Library of the Universe. Visions of Heaven. Or. Talmage’s sermon Sunday gives a Very- unusual view of. the celestial world and’ is one of the most unique discourses of the great preacher. The text is Ezekiel 1., 1, “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I wns among the captives by the River Cliebar, that the heavens were opened.” Ezekiel, with? others, had been expatriated, and while in foreign slavery, standing-on the banks of the royal canal which he and other serfs had been con-demned-to dig by the order. of Nebuchadnezzar—this royal canal in the text called the river of Chebar—the illustrious exile had visions of heaven. Indeed it is almost always so—that the brightest visions of heaven come not to those who are on mountain top of prosperity, but to some John on desolate Patmos, or to some Paul in Mamertine dungeon, or to some Ezekiel standing on the banks of a ditch he had been compelled to dig—yea, to the weary, to’ the heartbroken, to'those whom sorrow has banished. The text is very particular to give usUhe exact time of the vision. It was in the thirtieth year and in the fourth month and in the fifth day of the month. So you haVeliri/l visions of earth you shall never forget. You remember the year, you remember the month, you remember the day, you remember the hour. Why may we not huve some sueh vision notv. and it Ke in the twelfth month and in sixth day of the month? What Are They Dointr? The question is often silently asked, though perhaps never audibly propounded, “What are our departed Christian friends doing now?” The question is more easily answered than you might, perhaps suppose.. Though there has come no recent intelligence from the heavenly city, and we seem dependent upon the story of eighteen centuries ago, still I think we may from strongest inference decide what are the present occupations of our transferred ’kinsfolk. After God has made a nature he never eradicates the chief .characteristic of its temperament. You never knew a man phlegmatic in temperament to become sanguine in temperament. You never knew a man sanguine in temperament to become phlegmatic in temperament. Conversion plants new principles in the soul, but Paul and John are just as different from each other after conversion as they were different from each other before conversion. If conversion does not eradicate the prominent characteristics of temperament, neither will death eradicate them. Paul and John are as different from.each other in heaven as they- were different from each other in Asia Mhior. You have, thep, only by a sum in subtraction and a sum in addition to decide what are the employments'of your departed friends in the better world. You are to subtract from them all earthly grossuess and add all earthly- goodness, .and •then you are come to the conclusion that they arc doing now in heaven what in their best moment they did oh earth. The reason why sb many people never start for heaven is because they could not stand it if they got there if it should turn Out to be the rigid and formal place some people photograph it. We like to come to church, but we would not want to stay here till next summer. We like to hear the “Halleluiah Chorus,’ but we would not want to hear it all the time for fifty centuries. It might be on some great occasion it would be possibly comfortable to wear a crown rrf goto weighing several poundsjjiut. it would be an affliction to wear sueh a crown forever. In other words, we run the descriptions of heaven illto the ground while we make that which was intended as especial and celobrative to be the exclusive employment in heaven. Y’ou might as well, if asked to describe the habits of American society, describe a Decoration Day or a Fourth of July or an autumnal Thanksgiving, as ihough it were all the time that way. The Different Employments. I am going to speculate in regard to the future world, but I must, by inevitable laws of inference and deduction and common sense, conclude that in heaven we will be just as different from each other as we are now different, and hence that there will be at least as many different employments in the.-celestial world as there are employments here. Christ is to be the great love, the great joy, the great rapture, the great worship of'heaven, but will that abolish employments? No more J,han love on earth—paternal, filial, fraternal, conjugal love—abolishes earthly occupation. In the first place. I remark that all those of our departed Christian friends who on earth found great joy in. the fine arts are now indulging their tastes in the same direction. On earth they had their gladdest pleasures amid pictures and statuary and in the study of the laws of light and shade and perspective. Have you any idea that the affluence of faculty at death collapsed and perished? * I remark again that all- our departed Christian friends who in this world were passionately fond of mtisia are still regaling that taste in the world celestial. The Bible says so much about the music of heaven that it cannot all be figurative. Why all this talk about halleluiahs, and choirs on the glass and trumpets and harps and oratorios and organs? The . Bible over and fiver again speaks of the songs of heaven, If heaven had no songs of its own. a vast'number of those on earth would have been taken up earthly emigrants. Surely the at death does not lose his memory. In Bloodless Battle. Again, I remark, that those of our departed Christian friends who in this world had very strong military spirit are now in armies celestial and out in bloodless bnttlq. There 1 ' are hundreds of people born' soldiers. They cannot help it. They belong to regiments in times of peace. They cannot hear a drum or a fife without trying'to keep step to the music. They are Christian, and when they fight they fight on the right side. Now, when' these our Christian friends who. had nataral and powerful military spirit entered heaven, they entered tlie celestial army. The door of heaven scarcely opens but you hear a military demonstration. David cried out, “The chariots'of God are 20,000!” Elisha saw the mountains filled With celestial cavalry. St. John said, “The armies which are in heaven followed him mi white horses.” Now, when those who had the military spirit on earth sanctified entered gloty. I suppose they right away enlisted inUfae heavenly campaign. They right away. There must needs be in IMven soldiers with a soldierly spirit. Tljte nre grand parade days, when th 6 King revtatvs the troops. There must be armed escort sent out to bring up from earth to heaven those who • were more than conquerors. There must be crusades ever being fitted , out* for some part of God’s dominion—- ’ battles, bloodless, gtoanless, painless—angelji of evil to be fought down and fought out,mother rebellious worlds to a*

be conquered, worlds to be put to thetorch, worlds to be hoisted. Our departed Christian friends who had the military spirit in them sanctified are in the Celestial army. Whether belonging to the artillery, or the cavalry, or the infantry, I know not. I only know that they have started out for fleet service and courageous service and everlasting service. Perhaps they, may come this way to fight on our side and drive sin and meanness and satan from all our hearts. Yonder they are coming, coming. Did you hear them as they swept by?

Everlasting Metaphysics. But what are our mathematical- friends to do in the next world?. They found their joy and delight in mathematics. There was more poetry to them in Euclid than in John Milton. They were as pas-;, sionately fond of mathematics as Plato, who wrote over his door, “Let no one" enter here who is not acquainted with geometry.” What are theV doing now? They are busy with figures yet. No place in all the universe like heaven for figures. Numbers infinite, distances infinite, calculations infinite; if they want them, arithmetics and algebras and geometries and trigonometries for all eternity. What fields of space to be surveyed! What magnitudes to measure! What diameters, what circumferences, what triangles, what quaternions,’what epicycloids, what parallelograms, what conic sections! What arc.Qur departed friends who found their chief joy in study doing now? Studying yet, but, instead of a few thousand volumes on a few shelves, all the volumes of the universe open before them—geologic, ornithologic, conchologic. botanic, astronomic, philosophic. No more need of Leyden jars or voltaic piles or electric batteries, standing’ as they do face to face with the facts of the universe. What are the historians doing now? Studying history yet, but not the history of a few centuries of our planet only, but the history of the eternities—whole millenniums before Xenophon or Herodotus or Moses or Adam was born. History of one world, of all worlds; What are our departed astonomers doing? Studying astronomy yet, but not through the dull lens of earthly observatory, but with one stroke of wing going right out to Jupiter and mars and Mercury and Saturn and Orion and the Pleiades, overtaking and passing the swiftest comet in their flight. What are our departed Christian chemists doing? Following put their own science, following otit and following out forever. Since they died they have solved 10,000 questions which puzzled the earthly laboratory.

The Men Of the Law. But what are the men of the law who in this world found their chief joy in the legal profession, what are they doing now? Studying law in a universe where everything is controlled by law from the flight of humming bird to flight of world —law, not dry ami hard and drudging, but righteous and magnificent law, before which man ajid cherub and seraph and archangel and God himself bow. The chain of law long enough to wind around the immensities and infinity and eternity. Chain of law. What a place to study law, where all tjie links of the chain are in the hand. What are our departed Christian friends who in this world had their joy in the healing arts doing now? Busy at their old business. No sickness in heaven, but plenty of sickness on earth, plenty of wounds in the different parts of God's dominion to be healed and to be . medicated. Those glorified souls coming down, not in lazy doctor’s gig, but with lightning locomotion,. Those who had their joy in healing the Sickness and the woes of earth, gone up to heaven, are come forth again for benignant medicament. •“

Grander Sociality. But what are our friends .who found their chief joy in conversation and in sociality doing now? In brighter con■cersntion there and in grander sociality. What a place to visit in, where your next door neighbors'are kings and queens, you yourselves kingly and queenly! If they want to know more particularly about the first paradise, they have only to go over and ask Adam. If they want to know how the sun and the moon halted, they have only to go over and ask Joshua. If they want to know how the storm pelted Sodom, they have only to go over and ask Lot. If they want to know more about the -arrogance ofHaman, they have only to go over and ask Mordecai. If they' want to know how the Red Sea boiled when it was cloven, they have only to go over and ask Moses. If they want to know the particulars about the Bethlehem advent, they have only to go over and ask the serenading angels who stood that Christmas night in the balconies of crystal. If they want to know more of the particulars of the crucifixion, they have only to t go over and ask who were personal spectators while the mountains crouched and'’the heavens got black in the face at the spectacle. If they want to know more about the sufferings of the Scotch covenanters, they have only to go over and ask Andrew Melville. If they want to know more about the old time revivals, they have only to go over to ask Whitefield and Wesley and Livingston and Fletcher and Nettleton and Finney. What are our departed Christian friends who found their chief joy in studying God doing now? Studying God yet. No need of revelation now, for, unblanched, they are face to face. Now they can handle the omnipotent thunderbolts just as a child handles the sword of a father come back from victorious battle. They have no sin; no fear, consequently. Studying Christ, not through a revelation save the revelation of the sears —that deep lettering which brings it all up quick enough. Studying the Christ of the Bethlehem caravansary; the Christ of the ■ awful massacre, with its hemorrhage of head and hand and foot and side; the Christ oi the shattered mausoleum; Christ the sacrifice, the Star the Son, the Man, the God, the God-Man, the ManGod.

But hark! The bell of the cathedral rings—the cathedral bell of heaven. What is the matter now? There is going to be a great meeting in the temple. Worshipers all coming through the aisles. Make room for the Conqueror. Christ standing in the temple. All heaven gathering around him. Those who loved the beautiful come to look at the Rose of Sharon. Those who loved music come to listen to his voice. Those who' Were mathematicians come to count the years of his reign. Those who were explorers come to discover the height nnd the depth and rhe length and breadth of his love. Those who had the military spirit in heaven come to look at the Captain of their salvation. The astronomers oome to look at the Morning Star. The men of the law come to look at him who is the judge of qniek and dead. The meh who healed the sick come to look at him who was wounded for our transgressions.,, All different and different forever in many respects, yet all alike in admiration for Christ, in worship for Christ, and all alike jn join- ' ihft in the doxology, “Unto him who washed us from our sins in his own blood nnd made us kings and priests unto God, to him be glory in the church throughout all ages, world without end.” Amen.

To show you that your departed friends are more alive than they ever were, to make you homesick for heaven, to give you an enlarged view of the glories to be revealed, I have preached this sermon.