The dominion of this world over multitudes is illustrated by the names of coins of many countries. They have their pieces of money which they call sovereigns and half sovereigns, crowns and half crowns, Napoleons and half Napoleons, Fredericks and double Fredericks, and ducats, and Isabellinos, all of which names mean not so much usefulness as dominion. The most of our windows open toward the exchange, toward the salon of fashion, toward the god of this world. In olden times the length of the English yard was fixed by the length of the arm of King Henry I., and we are apt to measure things by a variable standard and by the human arm that in the great crises of life can give us no help. We need, like Daniel, to open our windows toward God and religion.
But, mark you, that good lion-tamer is not standing at the window, but kneeling, while he looks out. Most photographs are taken of those in standing or sitting posture. I now remember but one picture of a man kneeling, and that was David Livingstone, who in the cause of God and civilization sacrificed himself; and in the heart of Africa his servant, Majwara, found him in the tent by the light of a candle, stuck on the top of a box, his head in his hands upon the pillow, and dead on his knees. But here is a great lion-tamer, living under the dash of the light, and his hair disheveled of the breeze, praying. The fact is, that a man can see further on his knees than standing on tiptoe. Jerusalem was about five hundred and fifty statute miles from Babylon, and the vast Arabian Desert shifted its sands between them. Yet through that open window Daniel saw Jerusalem, saw all between it, saw beyond, saw time, saw eternity, saw earth, and saw heaven. Would you like to see the way through your sins to pardon, through your troubles to comfort, through temptation to rescue, through dire sickness to immortal health, through night to day, through things terrestrial to things celestial, you will not see them till you take Daniel's posture. No cap of bone to the joints of the fingers, no cap of bone to the joints of the elbow, but cap of bone to the knees, made so because the God of the body was the God of the soul, and especial provision for those who want to pray, and physiological structure joins with spiritual necessity in bidding us pray, and pray, and pray.
In olden time the Earl of Westmoreland said he had no need to pray, because he had enough pious tenants on his estate to pray for him; but all the prayers of the church universal amount to nothing unless, like Daniel, we pray for ourselves. Oh, men and women, bounded on one side by Shadrach's red-hot furnace, and the other side by devouring lions, learn the secret of courage and deliverance by looking at that Babylonish window open toward the south-west! "Oh," you say, "that is the direction of the Arabian Desert!" Yes; but on the other side of the desert is God, is Christ, is Jerusalem, is heaven.
The Brussels lace is superior to all other lace, so beautiful, so multiform, so expensive—four hundred francs a pound. All the world seeks it. Do you know how it is made? The spinning is done in a dark room, the only light admitted through a small aperture, and that light falling directly on the pattern. And the finest specimens of Christian character I have ever seen or ever expect to see are those to be found in lives all of whose windows have been darkened by bereavement and misfortune save one, but under that one window of prayer the interlacing of divine workmanship went on until it was fit to deck a throne, a celestial embroidery which angels admired and God approved.
But it is another Jerusalem toward which we now need to open our windows. The exiled evangelist of Ephesus saw it one day as the surf of the Icarian sea foamed and splashed over the bowlders at his feet, and his vision reminded me of a wedding-day when the bride by sister and maid was having garlands twisted for her hair and jewels strung for her neck just before she puts her betrothed hand into the hand of her affianced: "I, John, saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." Toward that bridal Jerusalem are our windows opened?
We would do well to think more of heaven. It is not a mere annex of earth. It is not a desolate outpost. As Jerusalem was the capital of Judae, and Babylon the capital of the Babylonian monarchy, and London is the capital of Great Britain, and Washington is the capital of our own republic, the New Jerusalem is the capital of the universe. The king lives there, and the royal family of the redeemed have their palaces there, and there is a congress of many nations and the parliament of all the worlds. Yea, as Daniel had kindred in Jerusalem of whom he often thought, though he had left home when a very young man, perhaps father and mother and brothers and sisters still living, and was homesick to see them, and they belonged to the high circles of royalty, Daniel himself having royal blood in his veins, so we have in the New Jerusalem a great many kindred, and we are sometimes homesick to see them, and they are all princes and princesses, in them the blood imperial, and we do well to keep our windows open toward their eternal residence.
It is a joy for us to believe that while we are interested in them they are interested in us. Much thought of heaven makes one heavenly. The airs that blow through that open window are charged with life, and sweep up to us aromas from gardens that never wither, under skies that never cloud, in a spring-tide that never terminates. Compared with it all other heavens are dead failures.
Homer's heaven was an elysium which he describes as a plain at the end of the earth or beneath, with no snow nor rainfall, and the sun never goes down, and Rhadamanthus, the justest of men, rules. Hesiod's heaven is what he calls the islands of the blessed, in the midst of the ocean, three times a year blooming with most exquisite flowers, and the air is tinted with purple, while games and music and horse-races occupy the time. The Scandinavian's heaven was the hall of Walhalla, where the god Odin gave unending wine-suppers to earthly heroes and heroines. The Mohammedan's heaven passes its disciples in over the bridge Al-Sirat, which is finer than a hair and sharper than a sword, and then they are let loose into a riot of everlasting sensuality.
The American aborigines look forward to a heaven of illimitable hunting-ground, partridge and deer and wild duck more than plentiful, and the hounds never off the scent, and the guns never missing fire. But the geographer has followed the earth round, and found no Homer's elysium. Voyagers have traversed the deep in all directions, and found no Hesiod's islands of the blessed. The Mohammedan's celestial debauchery and the Indian's eternal hunting-ground for vast multitudes have no charm. But here rolls in the Bible heaven. No more sea—that is, no wide separation. No more night—that is, no insomnia. No more tears—that is, no heart-break. No more pain—that is, dismissal of lancet and bitter draught and miasma, and banishment of neuralgias and catalepsies and consumptions. All colors in the wall except gloomy black; all the music in the major-key, because celebrative and jubilant. River crystalline, gate crystalline, and skies crystalline, because everything is clear and without doubt. White robes, and that means sinlessness. Vials full of odors, and that means pure regalement of the senses. Rainbow, and that means the storm is over. Marriage supper, and that means gladdest festivity. Twelve manner of fruits, and that means luscious and unending variety. Harp, trumpet, grand march, anthem, amen, and hallelujah in the same orchestra. Choral meeting solo, and overture meeting antiphon, and strophe joining dithyramb, as they roll into the ocean of doxologies. And you and I may have all that, and have it forever through Christ, if we will let Him with the blood of one wounded hand rub out our sin, and with the other wounded hand swing open the shining portals.
Day and night keep your window open toward that Jerusalem. Sing about it. Pray about it. Think about it. Talk about it. Dream about it. Do not be inconsolable about your friends who have gone into it. Do not worry if something in your heart indicates that you are not far off from its ecstasies. Do not think that when a Christian dies he stops, for he goes on.