465. The Gospel Archipelago

The Gospel Archipelago

Act_21:3 : ’93When we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on the left hand.’94

Rev_1:9 : ’93I, John… was in the isle that is called Patmos.’94

Good-by Egypt! Although interesting and instructive beyond any country in all the world, excepting the Holy Land, Egypt was to me somewhat depressing. It was a post-mortem examination of cities that died nearly three thousand years ago. The mummies, or wrapped-up bodies of the dead, were prepared with reference to the Resurrection Day, the Egyptians departing this life wanting their bodies to be kept in as good condition as possible, so that they would be presentable when they were called again to occupy them. But if, when Pharaoh comes to resurrection, he finds his body looking as I saw his mummy in the Museum at Bulak, his soul will become an unwilling tenant. The Sphinx also was to me a stern monstrosity, a statue carved out of rock of red granite, sixty-two feet high and about one hundred and forty-three feet long, and having the head of a man and the body of a lion. We sat down in the sand of the African desert to study it. With a cold smile it has looked down upon thousands of years of earthly history; Egyptian civilization, Grecian civilization, Roman civilization; upon the rise and fall of thrones innumerable; the victory and defeat of the armies of centuries. It took three thousand years to make one wrinkle on its red cheek. It is dreadful in its stolidity. Its eyes have never wept a tear. Its cold ears have not listened to the groans of the Egyptian nation. Its heart is stone. It cared not for Pliny, when he measured it in the first century. It will care nothing for the man who looks into its imperturbable countenance in the last century.

But Egypt will yet come up to the glow of life. The Bible promises it. The missionaries, like my friend, good and great Doctor Lansing, are sounding a resurrection trumpet above those slain empires. There will be some other Joseph at Memphis. There will be some other Moses on the banks of the Nile. There will be some other Hypatia to teach good morals to the degraded. When, soon after my arrival in Egypt, I took part in the solemn and tender obsequies of a missionary from our land, dying there far away from the sepulchers of her fathers, and saw around her the dusky and weeping congregation of those whom she had come to save, I said to myself, ’93Here is self-sacrifice of the noblest type. Here is heroism immortal. Here is a queen unto God forever. Here is something grander than the pyramids. Here is that which thrills the heavens. Here is a specimen of that which will yet save the world.’94

Good-by, Egypt! A few hours find us on the steamer Minerva in the Grecian Archipelago, the islands of the New Testament, and islands Paulinian and Johannian in their reminiscence. What Bradshaw’92s Directory is to travelers in Europe, and what the railroad guide is to travelers in America, the book of the Acts in the Bible is to voyagers in the Grecian, or as I shall call it, the Gospel, Archipelago. The Bible geography of that region is accurate without a shadow of mistake. We are sailing on the same waters that Paul sailed, but in the opposite direction to that which Paul voyaged. He was sailing southward and we northward. With him it was: Ephesus, Coos, Rhodes, Cyprus. With us it is reversed and it is: Cyprus, Rhodes, Coos, Ephesus. There is no book in the world so accurate as the Divine Book. My text says that Paul left Cyprus on the left; we, going in the opposite direction, have it on the right. On our ship Minerva were only two or three passengers besides our party. So we had plenty of room to walk the deck, and, oh, what a night was that winter night of 1889, in that Grecian Archipelago! Islands of light above and islands of beauty beneath. It is a royal family of islands, this Grecian Archipelago’97the crown of the world’92s scenery set with sapphire and emerald and topaz and chrysoprasus and ablaze with glory that seemed let down out of celestial landscapes. God evidently made up his mind that just here he would demonstrate the utmost that could be done with islands for the beautification of earthly scenery.

The steamer had stopped during the night, and in the morning we hastened up on deck and found that we had anchored off the island of Cyprus. In a boat, which the natives rowed standing up, as is the custom, instead of sitting down as when we row, we were soon landed on the streets where Paul and Barnabas walked and preached. Yea, when at Antioch, Paul and Barnabas got into a fight’97as ministers sometimes did, and sometimes do, for they all have imperfections enough to anchor them to this world till their work is done’97and because of that bitter controversy Paul and Barnabas parted, Barnabas came back here to Cyprus, which was his birthplace. Island wonderful for history! It has been the prize sometimes won by Persia, by Greece, by Egypt, by the Saracens, by the Crusaders, and last of all, not by sword but by pen, and that the pen of one of the keenest diplomatists of the century, Lord Beaconsfield, who, under a lease which was as good as a purchase, set Cyprus among the jewels of Victoria’92s crown. We went out into the excavations from which Di Cesnola has enriched our American museums with antiquities, and, with no better implement than our foot, we stirred up the ground deep enough to get a tear-bottle in which some mourner shed his tears thousands of years ago, and a lamp which before Christ was born lighted the feet of some poor pilgrim on his way. That island of Cyprus has enough to set an antiquarian wild. The most of its glory is the glory of the past; and the typhoid fevers that sweep its coast and the clouds of locusts that often blacken its skies (though two hundred thousand dollars were expended by the British Empire in one year for the extirpation of these destructive insects, yet failing to do the work), and the frequent change of governmental masters, hinder prosperity. But when the islands of the sea come to God, Cyprus will come with them, and the agricultural and commercial opulence which adorned it in ages past will be eclipsed by the agricultural and commercial and religious triumphs of the ages to come. Why is the world so stupid that it cannot see that nations are prospered in temporal things in proportion as they are prospered in religious things? Godliness is profitable not only for individuals, but for nations. Give Cyprus to Christ, give England to Christ, give America to Christ, give the world to Christ, and he will give them all a prosperity unlimited. Blindfold me and lead me into any city of the earth, so that I cannot see a street or a warehouse or a home, and then lead me into the churches and then remove the bandage from my eyes, and I will tell you from what I see inside the consecrated walls’97having seen nothing outside’97what is that city’92s merchandise, its literature, its schools, its printing-presses, its government, its homes, its arts, its sciences, its prosperity, or its depression and ignorance and pauperism and outlawry. The altar of God in the church is the high-water mark of the world’92s happiness. The Christian religion triumphant, all other interests triumphant. The Christian religion low down, all other interests low down.

So I thought as on the evening of that day we stepped from the filthy streets of Larnaka, Cyprus, on the boat that took us back to the steamer Minerva, which had already begun to paw the waves like a courser impatient to be gone, and then we moved on and up among the islands of this Gospel Archipelago. Night came down on the land and sea, and the voyage became to me more and more suggestive and solemn. If you are pacing it alone, a ship’92s deck, in the darkness and at sea, is a weird place; and an active imagination may conjure up almost any shape he will, and it shall walk the sea or confront him by the smokestack, or meet him under the captain’92s bridge; and here I was alone on ship’92s deck in the Gospel Archipelago, and do you wonder that the sea was populous with the past and that down the ratlines Bible memories descended? Our friends had all gone to their berths. ’93Captain,’94 I said, ’93when will we arrive at the Island of Rhodes?’94 Looking out from under his glazed cap, he responded, in sepulchral voice: ’93About midnight.’94 Though it would be keeping unseasonable hours, I concluded to stay on deck, for I must see Rhodes, one of the islands associated with the name of the greatest missionary the world ever saw or ever will see. Paul landed there, and that was enough to make it famous while the world stands, and famous in heaven when the world has become a charred wreck.

This island has had a wonderful history. With six thousand Knights of St. John, it at one time stood out against two hundred thousand warriors under ’93Solyman the Magnificent.’94 The city of the same name, the capital of the island, had three thousand statues, and a statue to Apollo called Colossus, which has always since been considered one of the seven wonders of the world. It was twelve years in building, and was seventy cubits high, and had a winding stair to the top. It stood fifty-six years and then was prostrated by an earthquake. After lying in ruins for nine hundred years, it was purchased to be converted to other purposes; and the metal, weighing seven hundred and twenty thousand pounds, was put on nine hundred camels and carried away. We were not permitted to go ashore, but the lights all up and down the hills show where the city stands, and nine boats came out to take freight and to bring three passengers. Yet all the thousands of years of the history of Rhodes are eclipsed by the few hours or days that Paul stopped there. As 1 stood there on the deck of the Minerva, looking out upon the place where the Colossus once stood, I bethought myself of the fact that the world must have a God of some kind. It is to me an infinite pathos’97this Colossus not only of Rhodes, but the colossi in many parts of the earth. This is only the world’92s blind reaching up and feeling after God. Foundered human nature must have a supernatural arm to help it ashore. All the statues and images of heathendom are attempts to bring celestial forces down into human affairs. Blessed be our ears that we have heard of an ever-present God, and that through Jesus Christ he comes into our hearts and our homes, and with more than fatherly and motherly interest and affection he is with us in all our struggles and bereavements and vicissitudes. Rhodes needs something higher than the Colossus; and the day will come when the Christ, whom Paul was serving when he sailed into this harbor of Rhodes, shall take possession of that island.

As we move on up through this archipelago, I am reminded of what an important part the islands have taken in the history of the world. They are necessary to the balancing of the planet. The two hemispheres must have them. As you put down upon a scale the heavy pound weights, and then the small ounces, and no one thinks of despising the small weights, so the continents are pounds and the islands are the ounces. A continent is only a larger island and an island only a smaller continent. Something of what part the islands have taken in the world’92s history you will see when I remind you that the island of Salamis produced Solon, and that the island of Chios produced Homer, and the island of Samos produced Pythagoras, and the island of Coos produced Hippocrates.

But there is one island that I longed to see more than any other. I can afford to miss the princes among the islands, but I must see the king of the Archipelago. The one I longed to see is not so many miles in circumference as Cyprus or Crete or Paros or Naxos or Scio or Mitylene; but I had rather, in this sail through the Grecian Archipelago, see that than all the others; for more of the glories of heaven landed there than on all the islands and continents since the world stood. As we come toward it I feel my pulses quicken. ’93I, John… was in the island that is called Patmos.’94 It is a pile of rocks twenty-eight miles in circumference. A few cypresses and inferior olives pump a living out of the earth, and one palm tree spreads its foliage. But the barrenness and gloom and loneliness of the island made it a prison for the banished evangelist. Domitian could not stand the apostle’92s ministry, and one day, under armed guard, that minister of the Gospel stepped from a tossing boat to these dismal rocks, and walked up to the dismal cavern which was to be his home, and the place where should pass before him all the conflicts of coming time and all the raptures of a coming eternity.

Is it not remarkable that nearly all the great revelations of music and poetry and religion have been made to men in banishment’97Homer and Milton banished into blindness; Beethoven banished into deafness; Dante writing his Divina Commedia during the nineteen years of banishment from his native land; Victor Hugo writing his Les Miserables exiled from home and country on the island of Guernsey’97and the brightest visions of the future have been given to those who, by sickness or sorrow, were exiled from the outer world into rooms of suffering. Only those who have been imprisoned by very hard surroundings have had great revelations made to them. So Patmos, wild, chill and bleak and terrible, was the best island in all the archipelago, the best place in all the earth, for divine revelations. Before a panorama can be successfully seen, the room in which you sit must be darkened; and in the presence of John was to pass such a panorama as no man ever before saw or ever again will see in this world, and hence the gloom of his surroundings was a help rather than a hindrance.

All the surroundings of the place affected St. John’92s imagery when he speaks of heaven. St. John, hungry from enforced abstinence, or having no food except that at which his appetite revolted, thinks of heaven; and as the famished man is apt to dream of bountiful tables covered with luxuries, so St. John says of the inhabitants of heaven, ’93They shall hunger no more.’94 Scarcity of fresh water on Patmos, and the hot tongue of St. John’92s thirst leads him to admire heaven as he says, ’93They shall thirst no more.’94 St. John hears the waves of the sea wildly dashing against the rocks, and each wave has a voice, and all the waves together make a chorus, and they remind him of the multitudinous anthems of heaven, and he says, ’93They are like the voice of many waters.’94 One day, as he looked off upon the sea, the waters were very smooth, and they were like glass, and the sunlight seemed to set them on fire, and there was a mingling of white light and intense flame, and as St. John looked out from his cavern home upon that brilliant sea, he thought of the splendors of heaven and describes them ’93As a sea of glass mingled with fire.’94 Yes, seated in the dark cavern of Patmos, though homesick and hungry and loaded with Domitian’92s anathemas, St. John was the most favored man on earth because of the panorama that passed before the mouth of that cavern.

Turn down all the lights that we may better see it. The panorama passes, and lo! the conquering Christ, robed, girdled, armed; the flash of golden candlesticks and seven stars in his right hand’97candlesticks and stars meaning light held up and light scattered. And there passes a throne and Christ on it, and the seals broken and the woes sounded and a dragon slain, and seven last plagues swoop, and seven vials are poured out, and the vision vanishes. And we halt a moment to rest from the exciting spectacle. Again the panorama moves on before the cavern of Patmos, and John, the exile, sees a great city, representing all abominations, Babylon’97towered, palaced, templed, fountained, foliaged, sculptured, hanging-gardened’97suddenly going crash! crash! and the pipers cease to pipe and the trumpets cease to trumpet, and the dust and the smoke and the horror fill the canvas, while from above and beneath are voices announcing ’93Babylon is fallen, is fallen!’94 And we halt again to rest from the spectacle. Again the panorama moves on before the cavern of Patmos, and John, the exile, beholds a city of gold; and a river, more beautiful than the Rhine or the Hudson, rolls through it, and fruit trees bend their burdens on each bank, and all is surrounded by walls in which the upholstery of autumnal forests and the sunrises and sunsets of all the ages and the glory of burning worlds seem to be commingled. And the inhabitants never breathe a sigh or utter a groan or discuss a difference or frown a dislike or weep a tear. The fashion they wear is pure white, and their foreheads are encircled by garlands, and they who were sick are well, and they who were old are young, and they who were bereft are reunited. And as the last figure of that panorama rolled out of sight, I think that John must have fallen back into his cavern nerveless and exhausted. Too much was it for human eye to look at. Too much was it for human strength to experience.

I would not wonder if you yourselves should have a very similar vision after a while. You will be done with this world, its cares and fatigues and struggles, and if you have served the Lord and have done the best you could, I should not wonder if your dying bed were a Patmos. It often has been so. I was reading of a dying boy, who, while the family stood around, sorrowfully expecting each breath would be the last, cried, ’93Open the gates! Open the gates! Happy! Happy!’94 Yes, ten thousand times in the history of the world has the dying bed been made a Patmos. You see the time will come when you, O child of God, will be exiled to your last sickness as much as John was exiled to Patmos. You will go into your room not to come out again, for God is going to do something better and grander and happier for you than he has ever yet done! There will be such visions let down to your pillow as God gives no man if he is ever to return to this tame world. The apparent feeling of uneasiness and restlessness at the time of the Christian’92s departure, the physicians say, is caused by no real distress. It is an unconscious and involuntary movement, and I think in many cases it is the vision of heavenly gladness too great for mortal endurance. It is only heaven breaking in on the departing spirit. You see, your work will be done and the time for your departure will be at hand, and there will be wings over you and wings under you and songs let loose on the air; and your old father and mother, gone for years, will descend into the room, and your little children, whom you put away for the last sleep years ago, will be at your side, and their kiss will be on your foreheads, and you will see gardens in full bloom, and the swinging open of shining gates, and will hear voices long ago hushed.

In many a Christian departure that you have known and I have known, there was in the phraseology of the departing ones something that indicated the reappearance of those long deceased. It is no delirium, no delusion, but a supernal fact. Your glorified loved ones will hear that you are about to come, and they will say in heaven, ’93May I go down to show that soul the way up? May I be the celestial escort? May I wait for that soul at the edge of the pillow?’94 And the Lord will say, ’93Yes; you may fly down on that mission.’94 And I think all your glorified kindred will come down, and they will be in the room; and although those in health standing around you may hear no voice, and see no arrival from the heavenly world, you will see and hear. And the moment the fleshly bond of the soul shall break, the cry will be, ’93Follow me! Up this way! By this gilded cloud, a-past these stars, straight for home, straight for glory, straight for God!’94

As on that day in the Grecian Archipelago, Patmos began to fade out of sight, I walked to the stern of the ship that I might keep my eye on the enchantment as long as I could, and the voice that sounded out of heaven to John, the exile in the cavern on Patmos, seemed sounding in the waters that dashed against the side of our ship, ’93Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage