READ (_Harvest Thanksgiving_)
PSALM lxv. 9.
"Thou preparest them corn."

GOD'S JEWELS (_Schools_)
MALACHI iii. 17.
"They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts,
in that day when I make up My jewels."

MUTUAL HELP (_Female Friendly Society)_
S. MARK iii. 35.
"Whosoever shall do the Will of God, the same
is My brother, and My sister, and My Mother."

SERMON XXXV.

THE OPEN DOOR.

(Trinity Sunday.)

REV. iv. 1.

"A door was opened in Heaven."

When Dante had written his immortal poems on Hell and Purgatory, the
people of Italy used to shrink back from him with awe, and whisper,
"see the man who has looked upon Hell." To-day we can in fancy look on
the face of the beloved Apostle, who saw Heaven opened, and the things
which shall be hereafter. We have summed up the great story of the
Gospel, and have trodden the path of salvation from Bethlehem to
Calvary. We have seen Jesus, the only Son of God, dying for our sins,
and rising again for our justification, and ascending into Heaven to
plead for us as our eternal great High Priest. We have heard of the
coming of God the Holy Ghost, the gift of the Father, sent in the name
of the Son. To-day, the Festival of the Blessed Trinity, Three
Persons, yet one God, we are permitted to gaze for a moment through the
open door, on the Home of God, yes, and the Home of God's people, who
are redeemed with the Precious Blood of Christ.

Now, there are many people who never think of Heaven at all, and many
who think of it in a wrong way. When we were baptised, the door was
opened for us in Heaven, and Jesus said to us, "Behold, I set before
you an open door." From that day we were permitted to look with the
eye of faith upon those good things which pass man's understanding.
But some of us would not look up. We were like travellers going along
a muddy road on a starlight night, and who look down on the foul, dirty
path, and never upwards to the bright sky above. My brother, turn your
eyes from this world's dirty ways, look away from your selfish work,
and your selfish pleasure, look up from the things which are seen and
are temporal, from the fashion of this world which passeth away, and
gaze through the open door of Revelation at the things which shall be
hereafter. I said that many people never think of Heaven at all.
These are they who love this world too well to think of the world to
come, they are of the earth, earthy. "As is the eart