Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1877-12-28
Reecher's Religion.

In his sermon in Plymouth Church,
Brooklyn, n. Y, on the morning of
the 10Th, Henry Ward Beecher made
statements in substance as follows:
Speaking of the Trinity, he said that he
believed there were three persons
united in one GOdhead, but, if anyone
should ask him why he believed, he
would tell him plainly that he did not
know anything about it,only that it was
easier to believe that which he thought
conceded with the doctrine of the New
Testament than to contradict. Ortho-
doxy says that men must believe in the
Trinity or they cannot come into the
church. That is called orthodoxy, but
he called it heathenism.
"It is not an easy thing" said Mr..
Beecher, "for an honest, conscientious
man to know Just what to preach and
what not TO preach" 1t was no easy
matter to remove the rotten timbcrs,
and replace them with sound ones, and
not stop the voyage of the ship. 1t was
also said that Adam sinned, and that,
in consequence of that sin, the whole
human race fell. The numbers of the
human race were actually beyond COM
putation, and for thousands and thou
sands and thousands of years they had
been born into the world, had lived, and
struggled, and finally died, and gone
whereP
"If you tell me that they have all
gone to heaven, my answer will be
that such a sweeping of mud into
heaven would defile its purity, and |
cannot accept that. If you tell me that
they have gone to hell, then i swear by
the Lord Jesus Christ, whom | have
sworn to worship forever, that you will
make an infidel of me. The doctrine
that God has been for thousands of
years peopling this earth with human
beings, during period three-fourths of
which was not illuminated by an altar
or church, and in places where vast
population of those people are yet with
out that light, is to transform the AL
mighty into monster more hideous
than Satan himself, and | swear by all
that is sacred that / will never worship
Satan, though he should appear dressed
in royal robes and seated on the throne
of Jehovah.
"Men may say: You will not go to
heaven. A heaven presided over by
SuNh n uCillOl ds tlldts hllO has DCCu
peopling this world with millions of
human beings and then sweeping them
off into he'll, not like dead flies, but
without taking the trouble even to kill
them, and gloating and laughing over
their eternal misery, is not such a
heaven as l want to go to. The doc
trine is too horrible. l cannot believe
it, and l won't. They say the saints in
heaven are so happy that they do not
mind the torments of the damned in
hell, but what sort of saints must they
be who could be happy while looking
down upon the horrors of the bottom
less pitP They don't mind-they' re
safe; they're happy!
"What would the mother think of the
sixteen-years-old daughter who, when
her infant was lying dead in the house,
should come dancing and singing into
the parlor and eXclaim: oh! I'm SC
happy, mother! don't care for the dead
baby in the cofliny Would she not be
shocked? And so with this doctrine.
And by the blood of Christ, denounce
it; by the wounds in His hands and His
side, abhor it; by His groans and ag,
ony, abhor and denounce it as the
most hideous nightmare of theology"