The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-06-19
Beecher's Notable Sermon.
Henry Ward Beecher Surprises his Com
gregation by Sermon out of the
Church Tenets.

sermon of Henry Ward Beecher, in his
Brooklyn church, and which created SO
profound sensation
"For the former things are passed away
Rev. xxi. 4.
This was the summation, Mr.. Beecher
said the particulars were given before.
He would read from the first verse to
the text. 1t was as though the voice
had said, "In this world men expert
ence sorrow and trial. Their hopes are
disappointments, their aspirations fail
ures. But there comes world III the
future in which all this---the former
things-shallh have passed away forever
This beautiful day was n good day to
talk about heaven. There was no stir
in the air, no storm on the water. All
things were beautiful and still. The
air was full of odors, distilled from the
white alembics of the flowers. 1t re-
minded one of the rest that remained
for the people of God.
Let them consider the transition by
which they should rise into that other
state of existence. Did souls pass i'm
mediately into blessedness after they
Quilted this state Or did they lie, as
the Jews believed, in vast receptacle
awaiting the last day? The New Testa-
ment was not clear on the subject, but
by implication its teaching was that
they rose at once into the divine pres
ence. No allusion was made by Paul
to an interval or dormant state, and yet
he made constant reference to the con-
dition of men after death. He never
intimated that the soul took sort of
unconscious vacation, awaiting general
ingathering to the spiritual sphere.
Nor did such an idea address itself to
any human instinct which desired it to
be true. Paul's doctrine was, "Absent
from the body, present with the Lord. "
Out of this, into that. There was a
spring of immediateism in his doctrine.
If there was great slumberous interval
after death, why was there no hint of it
in the Word of God? Mr.. Beecher did
not affirm with arrogant positiveness
that this doctrine was true and none
other, but he thought that scripture
warranted the presumption that they
had a right to believe SO.
This doctrine, Mr.. Beecher said, did
not exclude the idea of progress. They
had the testimony of Christ in Matthews S
gospel. Among the Jews, in order that
a woman's right of property might not
go out of the tribe, it was possible for
her to marry all the men of household.
Christ was asked whose wife such an
one should be in the nextworld. Christ
said, "Ye do err, not knowing the
scriptures, nor the power of God. Fo1
in the resurrection they neither marry
nor are given in marriage, but are as
the angels of God" Men in the next
world were to be as the angels. There
was progress. They were not to prepa.
gate, not to frame themselves into little
companies as on earth. The family re,
lation there was to be different. The
passions which continue the race, hun
ger and thirst which prompt to bodily
nourishment, the combative powers
requisite for protection here, were moi
required in the future state why, then
need men possess these powers or pas
sions or longings when they had lef
behind them the conditions which re
uuired them? When we left the body
we should leave behind us many burnt
out passions.
In the other life, too, our mind!
would be disabused of many function!
which it was needful for them to have
here. We should not carry our earthly
bodies into the other life, yet we should
have spiritual bodies which would iden
that emerged from death into HEAVIER
would range along an extended scale
There would be a system of progress
Those souls that were low in spiritua
culture in this life would be low dow
the scale in the next. Each soul woulC
begin with the capital acquired in thi
, life. Those who had one talent woult
be far below those who had five. Eacl
one would possess, as it were, a specif
gravity in the other, and would rest &C
cordingly. But scripture justified tn
belief that all would be as happy a
they could bear. They would develop
however, with rapidity of which W
could form no conception. Childre
who entered the next life as childre
would rise and develop more swift
than on earth. Men of low culture her
would there grow with wondrous rapid
) ity, so that the lowest and least woul
.. speedily outgrow all this worlds stand
ards. Take away from man all that be
longed to his lower nature, and Civ
him in force all that pertained to hi
> higher nature, and then you might cor
ceive of the aptitude with which h
would receive the lessons of the othel
He would be in society, too, where a
would move with one intent-the ev
gone, the temptation dropped out
moved together, like the Gulf Stream
nightly, irresistibly. There would b
also the direct influence of God-ho
; mighty the influence, how noble til
Joy
: We might thus see, said Mr.. Beeche
! how men who, when they died, were NJ
: very fit for heaven, and heaven migI
4 4 develop what earth never would hat
! developed. Sometimes when openin
up long disused well men found fe
! 4 old seeds at the bottom. They had lai
. . there for years. There was no sign
! life about them. They were brought
the light, however, and the sun shor
I upon them. They began to grow an
! sprout, and soon became healthy, vigo
GUS plants. One might conceive peop
here untitled by force of animal pa
sions for spiritual life, who, neverth
Y less, when death took away what WI
!, their bane on earth, might begin a ne
/ life in a future state. Some represente
e q man as taking into the next world IL
Z? nature, the disposition he had in thi
J, How could we conceive mans taki1
e all his sensual, rude, inchoate natu,
s into the other life? He did not take
j with him. Men grew as straw. "
/ could conceive a germ which-wht
f freed from the chaff and bettered. nu
i tured, and educated, and glowed on |
e the sun of Gods love-would open I
: and grow and flourish. On earth, 9