The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1873-06-13

n pftesCc6s
Rev Henry Ward Beecher delivered
the following remarkable sermon in Ply
mouth Church on the 3lst ult to a
crowded congregation:
For tho former things have passed avGy-Rsv- xIC,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 vC'ce bad
said, ain this world men experience sor-
row and trial Their hopes are disap-
pointments, their aspirations failures.
But there comes q world IN the future IN
which all thiS-the former things-shall
have passed away forever" This beauti
full day was a good day to talk about
Heaven. There was no stir in the air,
no storm on the water. All thing were
beautiful and still. The air was full of
orders distilled from the white alembics
of the flowers 1t reminded 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 SOILS pass i'm
mediately into blessedness after they
quilted this state? Or did they lie, as
the Jews believed, IN a vast receptacle
awaiting the last day2 The New TestaS
ment was not clear on the subject, but by
implication its teaching was that they
rose at once into the divine presence.
No allusion was made by Paul TO an in
terval or dormant state, and yet be made
constant reference to the condition of
men after death. He never minated
that the sOul took 4 sort of
UNCONSCIOUS VACATION,
awaiting a general Engineering to the
spiritual sphere. Nor did such an idea
address itself to any human instinct
which desired it to be true Panls does
trine was, absent from the body, pres
sent with the Lord" Out Of this, into
that There was a spring of immediat-
ism in his doctrine. If there was a great
Stun berous interval after death, why was
there no hist of it in the word of God ?
Dir. Beecher aid not affirm with arrogant
positiveness that this doctrine was true
and none other, bat he thought that scrip
ture 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 Mathews
wOmaus right of property might not 90
out Of the tribe, 1t was possible for her
to marry all the men of household
Christ was asked whose wife such one
should be in the next world. Christ said,
'Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures,
nor the power CT God. For in the resur-
rection they neither marry nor are given
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 propagate, not 30 frame themselves
into littie companies as on earth. The
family relation there was to be different
The passions which continue the race,
hunger and thirst which prompt to bodily
the combative powers re-
quisite for protection here, were not re
quired in the future state; why, then,
need men possess these powers or pass
sions OF lOngings when they had left be-
hind them the conditions which require ed
them? When we left the bOdy,we should
leave behind US many
BURNT OUT PASSIONS.
In the other life, too, our minds would
be disabused of many functions which it
was needful for them to have hero. We
should not carry our earthly bodies into
the other life, yet we should have spirit
ual bodies which would identify us one
from the other. The souls that emerged
from death into heaven would range
along an extended scale. There would
be a system of progress. Those souls
that were low in spiritual culture in this
life would be low down the scale In the
next. Each soul would begin with the
capital acquired in this life. Those who
had one talent would be far below those
who had FIVE. Each one would possess,
as it were. specific gravity in the other,
and would rest accordingly. But scrip
ture justified the belief that all you'd be
as happy as they could bear They would
develop, however, with a rapidity of
which we could form no conce ption
Children who entered the next life as
children would rise and develop more
swiftly than on earth. Men here would
there grow with wonderous Tapidity, so
that the lowest and least would speedily
out grow all this world 5 standards Take
away from man all that belonged to his
lower nature, and give him In force all
that pertained to his higher nature, and
then you might conceive of the aptitude
With which he would receive the lessons
of the other tie would be In society,
too, where all would move with one in>
tent-the evil gone, the temptable drop
ped out--moyed together like the gulf
stream, nightly, irresistibly. there
would be also the direct influence of
God-hOw nightly the influence, how
noble the JOY
CNIVRRSALIsT DOCTRINE.
We might thus see, said Mr.. Beecher,
how men, who, when they died, we're not
very fit for earth, might nevertheless en-
ter heaven and heaven might develop
what earth never would have developed.
Sometimes when opening up long dis
used well men found few old seeds at
the bottom They had lain there for
years. There was no sign Of life about
them. They were brought to the light,
however, and the sun shone upon them.
! They began to grow and sprOut and soon
/ became healthy, vigorous plants. One
might conceive people here united by
force of animal passion for a spiritual
life, who, nevertheless, when death took
away what was their bane Oh earth
might begin a good life IN a future state
! Some represented = man az taking into
the next world the nature, the disposition
/ he had in this How could we conceive
/ q mans taking all his sensual, rude, in
/ choate nature into the other life He
/ did not take it with him. Men grew az
straw. We could conceive a germ which
when freed from the chat and better
ed, nurture5, and educated, and gloweC
on by the sun Of God love-wOuld opeT
/ up and grow and flourish. On earth, al
/ through much sin ard darkness 1t lived
and grew some at times But with {
! thousand hindrances shredded of, vi
{ could understand how men whom sUcieEl
( rejects now, may get
/ STANDING ROOM N Heaven,
not high up, but a starting place. /
heaven was so rigidly pure, then deatl
must be a great sitter. Iook at the sain