that are set before them in this illustrated house, but they must become
the children of God, and must be well on in the life of God, before they
will be able to say that the house next the gate has been a profitable
and a helpful house to them. All that is displayed here--all the
furniture and all the vessels, all the ornaments and all the employments
and all the people of the Interpreter's House--is fitted and intended to
be profitable as well as interesting to pilgrims only. No man has any
real interest in the things of this house, or will take any abiding
profit out of it, till he is fairly started on the upward road. In his
former life, and while still on the other side of the gate, our pilgrim
had no interest in such things as he is now to see and hear; and if he
had seen and heard them in his former life, he would not, with all the
Interpreter's explanation, have understood them. As here among ourselves
to-night, they who will understand and delight in the things they hear in
this house to-night are those only who have really begun to live a
religious life. The realities of true religion are now the most real
things in life--to them; they love divine things now; and since they
began to love divine things, you cannot entertain them better than by
exhibiting and explaining divine things to them. There is no house in
all the earth, after the gate itself, that is more dear to the true
pilgrim heart than just the Interpreter's House. 'I was glad when it was
said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Peace be within thy
walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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