"And the twelve gates were twelve pearls."—Rev. 21:21.
 

 Our sobject speaks of a great metropolis, the existence of which many have doubted. There has been a vast immigra­tion into that city, but no emigration from it—so far as our natural vision can descry. "There is no such city," says the un­devout astronomer. "I have stood in high towers with a mighty telescope, and have swept the heavens, and I have seen spots on the sun and caverns in the moon; but no towers have ever risen on my vision, no palaces, no temples, no shining streets, no massive wall. There is no such city." Even very good people tell me that heaven is not a material organism, but a grand spiritual fact, and that the Bible descriptions of it are in all cases to be taken figuratively. I bring in reply to this what Christ said, and He ought to know: "I go to prepare^"—not a theory, not a principle, not a sentiment; but "go to prepare a place for you.^"

The resurrected body implies this. If my foot is to be re-formed from the dust, it must have something to tread on. If my hand is to be reconstructed, it must have something to handle. If my eye, having gone out in death, is to be rekindled, I must have something to gaze on. Your adverse theory seems to imply the resurrected body is to be hung on nothing, or to walk in air, or to float amid the intangibles. You tell us that if there be material organisms, then a soul in heaven will be cramped and hindered in its enjoyments; but I answer: Did not Adam and Eve have plenty of room in the Garden of Eden? Although only a few yards or a few miles would have described the circumference of that place, they had ample room. And do you not suppose that God, in the immensities, can build a place large enough to give the whole race room, even though there be material organisms? Herschel looked into the heavens. As a Swiss guide puts his alpenstock between the glaciers, and crosses over from crag to crag, so Herschel planted his telescope between the worlds and glided from star to star, until he could announce to us that we live in a part of the universe but sparsely strewn with worlds; and he peers out into immensity until he finds a region no larger than our solar system in which there are fifty thousand worlds moving. And Professor Lang says that, by a philosophic reasoning, there must be somewhere a world where there is no darkness, but everlasting sunshine; so that I do not know but that it is simply because we have no telescope powerful enough that we cannot see into the land where there is no darkness at all, and catch a glimpse of the burnished pinnacles. As a conquering army, marching on to take a city, comes at nightfall to the crest of a mountain from which, in the midst of the landscape, they can see the castles they are to capture, rein in their war chargers and halt to take a good look before they pitch their tents for the night, so now, coming as we do on this mountain-top of prospect, I command this regiment of God to rein in their thoughts and halt, and before they pitch their tents for the night take one good, long look at the gates of the great city. "And the twelve gates were twelve pearls.^"

In the first place I want you to examine the architecture of those gates. Proprietors of large estates are very apt to have an ornamented gateway. Sometimes they spring an arch of ma­sonry, the posts of the gate flanked with lions in statuary; the bronze gate is a representation of intertwining foliage, bird-haunted, until the hand of architectural genius drops exhausted, all its life frozen into the stone. Babylon had a hun­dred gates; so had Thebes. Gates of wood, and iron, and stone guarded nearly all the old cities. Moslems have inscribed upon their gateways inscriptions from the Koran of the Mohammedan. There have been a great many fine gateways, but Christ sets hand to the work, and for the upper city He swung a gate such as no eye ever gazed on untouched of inspiration. With the nail of His own cross He cut into it wonderful trac­eries, stories of past suffering and of gladness to come. There is no wood, or stone, or bronze in that gate, but from top to base, and from side to side, it is all of pearl. Not one piece picked up from Ceylon banks, and another piece from the Persian Gulf, and another piece from the island of Margarette; but one solid pearl picked up from the beach of ever-lasting light by heavenly hands, and hoisted and swung amid the shouting of angels. The glories of alabaster vase and por­phyry pillar fade out before this gateway. It puts out the spark of feldspar and Bohemian diamond. You know how one little precious stone on your finger will flash under the lamp-light. But 0! the brightness when the great gate of heaven swings, struck through and dripping with the light of eter­nal noonday. Julius Cesar paid a hundred and twenty-five thousand crowns for one pearl. The Government of Portugal boasted of having a pearl larger than a pear. Cleopatra and Philip II dazzled the world's vision with precious stones. But gather all these together, and lift them, and add to them all the wealth of the pearl fisheries, and set them in the panel of one door, and it does not equal this magnificent gateway. An almighty hand hewed this, swung this, polished this.

Against this gateway, on the one side, dash all the splendors of earthly beauty. Against this gate on the other side beat the surges of eternal glory. 0! the gate! the gate! It strikes an in-finite charm through everyone that passes it. One step this side that gate and we are paupers. One step the other side that gate and we are kings. The pilgrim of earth going through sees in the one huge pearl all his earthly tears in crystal. 0! the gate of light! gate of pearl! gate of heaven! For our weary souls at last swing open:

When shall these eyes Thy heaven-built walls And pearly gates behold;

Thy bulwarks with salvation strong,

And streets of shining gold?

0! Heaven is not a dull place. Heaven is not a contracted place. Heaven is not a stupid place. "I saw the twelve gates, and they were twelve pearls.^"

In the second place I want you to count the number of those gates. Imperial parks and lordly manors are apt to have one expensive gateway, and the others are ordinary; but look around at these entrances to heaven, and count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Hear it, all the earth and all the heavens. Twelve gates! I ad­mit this is rather hard on sharp sectarians! Here is a bigoted Presbyterian who brings his Westminster Assembly Catechism, and he makes a gateway out of that, and he says to the world: "You go through there or stay out.^" And here is a bigoted member of the Reformed Church, and he makes a gate out of the Heidelberg Catechism, and he says: "You go through there or stay out." And here is a bigoted Methodist, and he plants two posts, and he says: "Now, you crowd in between those two posts or stay out." And here is a bigoted Episcopalian, who says: ^"Here is a liturgy out of which I mean to make a gate: go through it or stay out." And here is a bigoted Baptist, who says: ^"Here is a water-gate: you go through that or you must stay out." And so on in all our churches and in all our denom­inations there are men who make one gate for themselves, and then demand that the whole world go through it. I abhor this contractedness in religious views.

Oh, small-souled man, when did God give you the contract for making gates? I tell you plainly I will not go in at that gate. I will go in at any one of the twelve gates I choose. Here is a man who says: "I can more easily and more closely approach my God through a prayer-book." I say: "My brother, then use the prayer-book." Here is a man who says: ^"I believe there is only one mode of baptism, and that is immersion." Then I say: "Let me plunge you!" Anyhow, I say, away with the gate of rough panel, and rotten posts, and rusted latch, when there are twelve gates and they are twelve pearls. The fact is, a great many of the churches in this day are being doctrined to death. They have been trying for twenty-five years to find out all about God's decrees, and they want to know who are elected to be saved and who are reprobated to be damned, and they are keeping on discussing that subject when there are millions of souls who need to have the truth put straight at them that unless they repent they will all be damned. They sit counting the number of teeth in the jaw-bone with which they are to slay the Philistines when they ought to be wielding skilfully the weapon. They sit on the beach and see a vessel going to pieces in the offing, and instead of getting into a boat and pull­ing away for the wreck, they sit discussing the different styles of oarlocks. God intended ut to know some things, and in-tended us not to know others. I have heard scores of sermons explanatory of God's decrees, but came away more perplexed than when I went. The only result of such discussion is a great fog. Here are two truths which are to conquer the world: man, a sinner—Christ, a saviour. Any man who adopts those two theories in his religious belief shall have my right hand in warm grip of Christian brotherhood.

A man comes down to a river in time of freshet. He wants to get across. He has to swim. What does he do? The first thing is to put off his heavy apparel, and drop everything he has in his hands. He must go empty-handed if he is going to the other bank. And I tell you when we have come down to the river of death and find it swift and raging, we will have to put off all our sectarianism, and lay down all our lumbrous creeds, and empty-handed put out for the other shore. "What," say you, ^"would you resolve all the Christian Church into one kind of church? Would you make all Christendom worship in

the same way, by the same forms?" Oh, no. You might as well decide that all people shall eat the same kind of food without reference to appetite, or wear the same kind of apparel with-out reference to the shape of their body. Your ancestry, your temperament, your surroundings will decide whether you go to this or that church, and adopt this or that church polity. One church will best get one man to heaven, and another church another man.

I am not opposed to fences being built around denomina­tions of Christians. I am not opposed to a very high fence be­ing built around each of the denominations of Christians; but I do say that in every fence there ought to be bars that you can let down, and a gate that you can swing open. Go home, therefore, today, and take your Bible and get down on your knees before God, and make your own creed. I am not opposed to creeds; I believe in them; but a creed that does not reach down to the depth of a man's immortal nature is not worth the paper that it is printed on. I do not care which one of the gates you go through, if only you go through one of the twelve gates that Jesus lifted.

Well now, I see all the redeemed of earth coming up toward heaven. Do you think they will get in? Yes. Gate the first: the Moravians come up; they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; they pass through. Gate the second: the Quakers come up; they have received the inward light; they have trusted in the Lord; they pass through. Gate the third: the Lutherans come up; they had a great admiration for the reformer, and received the same grace that made Luther what he was, and they pass through. Gate the fourth: many of the Roman Catholics come up who look beyond the superstitions of their church, and, believing in salvation by Jesus Christ, they pass through. Gate the fifth: the German Reformed Church passes through. Gate the sixth: the Congregationalists pass through. Gate the sev­enth: the Baptists pass through. Gate the eighth: the Episco­palians pass through. Gate the ninth the Sabbatarians pass through. Gate the tenth: the Methodists pass through. Gate the eleventh: the Reformed Dutch Church passes through. Gate the twelfth: the Presbyterians pass through. But there are a great host of other denominations who must come in, and great multitudes who connected themselves with no visible church, but felt the power of godliness in their heart, and showed it in their life. Where is their gate? Will you shut all this remaining host out of the city? No. They may come in at our gate. Hosts of God, if you cannot get admission through any other entrance, come in at the twelfth gate.

Look out on the one hundred and forty and four thousand, and you cannot tell at what gate they came in. One Lord. One faith. One baptism. One glassy sea. One doxology. One tri­umph. One heaven. "Why, Luther, how did you get in?" "I came through the third gate." "Cranmer, how did you get in?" "I came through the eighth gate." "Adoniram Judson, how did you get through?" "I came through the seventh gate." "Hugh McKail, the martyr, how did you get through?" "I came through the twelfth gate." Glory to God! One heaven, but twelve gates.

In the third place, notice the points of the compass toward which these gates look. They are not on one side, or on two sides, or on three sides, but on four sides. This is no fancy of mine, but a distinct announcement. On the north, three gates; on the south, three gates; on the east, three gates; on the west, three gates. What does that mean? Why, it means that all nationalities are included, and it does not make any difference from what quarter of the earth a man comes up; if his heart is right, there is a gate open before him. On the north, three gates. That means mercy for Lapland, and Siberia, and Nor-way, and Sweden. On the south, three gates. That means par-don for Hindustan, and Algiers, and Ethiopia. On the east, three gates. That means salvation for China, and Japan, and Borneo. On the west, three gates. That means redemption for America. It does not make any difference how dark-skinned or how pale-faced men may be, they will find a gate right be-fore them. Those plucked bananas under a tropical sun. Those behind reindeer shot across Russian snows. From Mexican plateau, from Roman campania, from Chinese tea-field, from Holland dyke, from Scotch highlands, they come, they come. Heaven is not a monopoly for a few precious souls. It is not a Windsor Castle, built only for royal families. It is not a small town with a small population. But John saw it, and he noticed that an angel was measuring it, and he measured it this way, and then he measured it that way, and whichever way he meas­ured it, it was fifteen hundred miles, so that Babylon and Thebes, and Tyre and Nineveh, and St. Petersburg and Can-ton, and Pekin and Paris, and London and New York, and all the dead cities of the past, and all the living cities of the present added together, would not equal the census of that great metropolis. Walking along a street, you can, by the con-tour of the dress, or of the face, guess where a man came from. You say: "That is a Frenchman; that is a Norwegian; that is an American." But the gates that gather in the righteous will bring them irrespective of nationality. Foreigners sometimes get homesick. Some of the tenderest and most pathetic stories have been told of those who left their native clime, and longed for it until they died. But the Swiss, coming to the high resi­dence of heaven, will not long any more for the Alps, stand­ing in the eternal hills. The Russian will not long any more for the luxuriant harvest fields he left, now that he hears the hum and the rustle of the harvests of everlasting light. The royal ones from earth will not long to go back again to the earthly court now that they stand in the palaces of the sun. Those who once lived among the groves of spice and oranges will not long to return, now that they stand under the trees of life that bear twelve manner of fruit.

While I speak, an ever-increasing throng is pouring through the gates. They are going up from Senegambia, from Pata­gonia, from Madras, from Hong Kong. "What!" you say, "do you introduce all the heathen into glory?" I tell you the fact is, the majority of the people in those climes die in infancy, and the infants all go straight into eternal life, and so the vast majority of those who die in China and India, the vast major­ity of those who die in Africa, go straight into the skies; they die in infancy. One hundred and sixty generations have been born since the world was created, and so I estimate that there must be fifteen thousand million children in glory. If at a con­cert two thousand children sing, your soul is raptured within you. Oh, the transport when fifteen thousand million little ones stand up in white before the throne of God, their chant­ing drawing out all the stupendous harmonies of Dusseldorf, and Leipzig, and Boston! Pour in through the twelve gates, oh, ye redeemed—banners lifted, rank after rank, saved bat­talion after saved battalion, until all the city of God shall hear the tramp, tramp!

Room yet. Room on the thrones. Room in the mansions. Room on the river bank. Let the trumpet of invitation be sounded until all earth's mountains hear the shrill blast and the glens echo it. Let missionaries tell it in Pagoda, and col­porteurs sound it across the Western prairies. Shout it to the Laplander on his swift sled; halloo it to the Bedouin careering across the desert. News! News! A glorious heaven and twelve gates to get into it! Hear it! Oh, you thin-blooded nations of eternal winter—on the north, three gates. Hear it! Oh, you bronzed inhabitants panting under equatorial heats—on the south, three gates.

But I notice when John saw these gates, they were open—wide open. They will not always be so. After a while heaven will have gathered up all its intended population, and the chil­dren of God will have come home. Every crown taken. Every harp struck. Every throne mounted. All the glories of the universe harvested in the great garner. And heaven being made up, of course the gates will be shut. Austria in, and the first gate shut. Russia in, and the second gate shut. Italy in, and the third gate shut. Egypt in, and the fourth gate shut. Spain in, and the fifth gate shut. France in, and the sixth gate shut. England in, and the seventh gate shut. Norway in, and the eighth gate shut. Switzerland in, and the ninth gate shut.