The Leavenworth weekly times. [volume] (Leavenworth, Kan.) 1870-1880, 1870-10-20

ticket have also been "sloshing about flush
ing the prairie chickens and interviewing
probable delegates.
PARAMOUNT, Oct. Is, 1870. J.B.S.
METEOROLOGICAL BEECH BR.
He Says the Bible Is Full Of Fiction
He Alee1ars There Is No Lake Of Fire
streets Of Heaven Not Paved With
| Gold md SilveF-EVery Man Els DIV %
! Heaven. Maker-lAn Amused C0nsre-
EattSn worked Up 70 u Laughing
from the y. Y. World.
Plymouth Church was more than
crowded yesterday morning. Many persons
were unable to obtain admittance to the
building. In reading the notices for the
week. Mr.. Beecher INDUCED in the usual
running comment on them. Thus in MOTTO
ing an ordination of minister that was to
take place in the afternoon of yesterday,
after reading the notice and the names Of
the clergymen who were to take part in the
ceremony, he said: ''This may he so and it
may not he so, for there is no name signed
to this paper. Persons ought to sign their
names to all notices fthey are not ashamed
of them; it is not right to send anonymous
communications to the pulpit to be read,
neither ought they to put in an envelope
and sealed up tight, SO that the minister
cannot get at them without trouble. They
should be open and signed"
! After the other preliminary exercises, Mr.
Beecher proceeded to preach, taking his text
from Matthew xii, 80: "For in the resur-
rection, they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, but are as the Angels of God in
Heaven"
In Jerusalem, said Mr.. Beecher, every one
| of the factions had their turn in PROFOUND
| ing to Christ their questions; they had their
enigmas and their dark sayings, which had
| no substantial truth, and here is specimen:
The Saducees did not believe in a resurrec-
| ton, according to the land system of the
Jews, by which property was to be kept in
families. If brother died, his widow was
to be taken by his next brother, polygamy
| being permissible; and so there was widow
who passed from one brother to another to
the seventh. "Now," say they, ain the
other life whose shall she be, for all seven
had herr" The answer Of the Saviour
was substantially this, "You are a set of
ignorant fools" 1t was couched in other
language than this, but it came to that. aye
do err, not knowing the power of the Scrip
lures" You blunder, you are ignorant, the
everlasting law of nature is the law Of God.
For in the resurrection they neither marry
nor are given in marriage. But although he
likened men in the future state 10 angels, he
did not explain what angels were. He said
that there was part of man that ceases and
does not go into the other life; that portion
of his powers which fit him for this lower
life will stay here and wither and fall back,
and that in the other life we shall carry those
qualities which are highest and noblest
His reply, therefore, is remarkable both for
what it says, and quite as remarkable for
what it leaves unsaid; for not only here in
this passage, but everywhere in the Bible,
you will be struck with how little he has
had to say about the other state. lie poured
light on life and Immortality, but he cert
ainly did not reveal them. In the passage,
Eye do err hot knowing the power of the
scriptures" he afiirms that the Old Testa-
ment taught that there was another life after
death; and 1t may seem strange, but it almost
requires some such affirmation as this to per
s,lade us that the Old Testament did recOg-
nize some such doctrine. For it has never
been explicitly taught, though great many
times recognized, and there can be no ques-
ton but what in those early times such dim
faith existed, though there is not a single
instance in the whole of the five books of
Moses where it is addressed to man as mo-
tive of conduct; all idea of reward and pun
ishment relative to this life. If YOU do this
you shall be punished, or if you do that you
shall be rewarded here in this world-no-
where in the other. People ask, can Univer-
salists he Christians. Let me ask them how
could God maintain an economy that run
for 4, 600 years, and never recognized any
such thing as 4 future state. And there is
nothing taught in the New Testament that
is specific as to heaven, whether it is thing
or place. There Is no account given of its
government or of the experience of those
that are there. 4 thousand questions, there
fore, are not answered which a thousand of
not unnaturally inquisitive spirits now ask.
We reason now more in respect to our own
nature than the ancients did. Paul declares
that ''fesh and blood shall not inherit the
Kingdom of Heaven" yet there shall be
something like this form, yet not this form;
what it is to be you know as we'll as l do,
and none of us know anything about
it. There is not one single line of
explicit statement rs to what will
be our employment in the heavenly land 1
We do not know; ii is not stated. In short |
the questions generated by cur condition on |
earth are answered mostly thus. We do not |
understand the power of God, and in regard |
to the resurrection it docs not vet appear
what We will be. 1--WE see now as through a |
glass darby, but then face to face" But |
this very vagueness is better calculated to |
stimulate zeal and endurance than If it had |
been analized and made plain to us philoeo-
phically. We are fought vaguely; everything
is left to the Imagination. But you will say
is not this satisfactory? No, for it is through
The imagination that children are always
fought in relation to those things which are
above them, and We are here as children not
to understand things wholly bey-
ond the reach of our experience. Therefore,
every instruction is given to us through the
1t is the truth of God address
ed to our hearts and to our affections
through our Imagination. 1t may be said,
therefore, that heaven is a revelation to
mans heart through his imagination, and
God thus teaches us Of things which We can
not understand in any other way. The teach
ngs Of the bible are pictorial, so Of the pic
ures of heaven and hell, We are not to sup
,ose that there Is literally lake Of fire and
,rimstone.
You do not believe it, nor do /. Nor are
ron to suppose that Heaven is paved with
,old and silver. You do not belive that. I'll
,eople did believe it there would be more
nisers anxious for their souls salvation.
Laughter.l 1t is used as pictorial figure,
ge have no means of understanding the ac-
ual thing; We know of it 1t is to us fiction
nd fiction is oftentimes more nearly true
han truth itself. If l should try to tell nv
hid about an, eclipse Of the sun and
hould say that the moon, in sportive
mood, thought it would get before the sun ,
nd obscure its light, hecwould really have !
ONE idea of what an eclipse was, but if 1 I
hould explain it to him scientifically he I
Tould know nothing about it, and the Bible !
, full Of fctions, although it has made 70 I
,any good men who would be afraid to .
ead novel. But all that men know of art, q
t riches, Of courts, of crowns, Of princes, all /
he beauty of trees. Of gardens, all in rivers Z