The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-02-16
which the farmer puts in his cornfeld to keep off
the ravens is the farmer himself

believe that God is asavage sovereign, who made
some men just to damn them, and that there
are infants in hell a span long. There
is not an infidel on earth, though he had a
retainer of thousand dollars day, who could
manage in the course of ten years, to make an
honest fair and accurate representation of what
the Presbyterian Church believes. 1t believes
that God is loving and just sovereign, and that
man is a free agent. mo, no~ says the antagon-
list, who has chewed up the little book Of creeds,
and has the consequent embittered stomach, IF
God is a sovereign we cannot be free agents. :"
But we acknowledge that possibility everywhere
else. /, De Witt Talmage, am free citizen OF
Brooklyn; that is, | go where please, and when
please Yes, but l have four sovereigns over
me. The highest court of my denomination is
my ecclesiastical sovereign. The mayor OF the
| city is my municipal sovereign. The Governor
of New York is my State sovereign. The Presi-
dent of the United States is my national SOW
ereign. Yet, with these four sovereigns, in
every faculty of body, mind, and soul, am a
free man.
If l would tomorrow walk in the corridor of
Mercantile Library and improve my mind, or go
through the conservatory of my friend at ia
maica who has blooming, under the arches OF
glass, flowers from all zones, and aquariums
asquirin with trout and gold fish, and wish to
pluck ripe oranges and bananas from the
branches may do so. And if / want to go up
to the furnaces of one of the oil factories in
Hoboken, and jump into the flames. leap Off
the platform of Philadelphia express train, or
from the deck of a Fulton-street ferry-boat,
can do so. If | leap into the Hoboken furnaces
who is to blame2 My friend out at Jamaica, who
offers me his conservatory? That is all there is
| in Presbyteranism about Gods sovereignty and
mans free agency. God rules and reigns, and
| has Conservatives, and he has blast-furnaces.
| If you want to walk IN the gardens you may, and
| if you want to leap into the redhot cauldrons
| you may. If you choose the cauldron rather
than the conservatory, who is to blame2
| OF course the one who made the conservatory
| and sent you written invitation to come and
| spend your life among the cactus and palm
| trees. We simply mean that the empire of the
future will have palace and q penitentiary.
| Ali our cities have their penitentiaries. Sup
| pose some one had a charmed key by which he
| could go through the United States and open
| Raymond street jail, and New York Tombs and
| Moyamening prison, of Philadelphia, and all the
| dungeons and penitentiaries, what would be-
come of this country in three weeks? Now the
| empire of the future has its penitentiary. Sup
pose all the culprits of that penitentiary should
| be let out and enter the New Jerusalem, The
! first morning the gate of pearl would be found
off its hinges. The linch-pins would be out OF
| the chariot wheels. The house of many man
sions would be burglarized Angels of God
| would be insulted on the street. Assault and
| battery, and hbertinism, and assassination In
| the capital Of the skies. Heaven will be fail
| ure if there be not somewhere a great lookup
| If all get to heaven without reference to what
their character was when they left the earth, l
| wonder if in the heavenly temple Charles
! Guteau and John Wilkes Booth occupied the
| same pew.
saw photograph in Arkansas of a capsized
rail train. Some villains had taken up the track
near a railroad bridge and the train had gone
thirty feet down and killed about twenty people
mostly women and childen. When the despera
| does who pulled up that track get to heaven l
wonder if their thrones will be anywhere near
| the people they slew. If a murderer break into
| o house and massacre whole family and the
police, hearing the disturbance. rush upon the
scene and put bullet through the skull of the
ruffan. will they all, the slain and their slayer,
arrive in glory about the same time! You all
/ see that it is only common sense that there
| should be two destinies. And as TO infants in
! hell span long that is falsehood that came
down from the past and there is no sign that its
| longevity will ever fail. If you will bring me a
| Presbyterian in sound mind, and of good morals,
| who believes that there has ever been baby, or
| ever will be baby in the lost world will make
| over to that man deed of all the property L
have, and he can take possession tomorrow.
| FALsEHooDs ABOUT OTHER CHURCHES.
| The antagonists of evangelical religion say
that the Episcopal Church substitutes forms
and ceremonies for heart religion, and it is all a
matter of liturgy and genufectious. False
again. All genuine Epscopalians will tell you
that the forms and ceremonies of their church
| are nothing unless the heart be in them l never
| nave been more overwhelmed Win reNSlOuS
| feeling than when / heard, at Sharon Springs,
our neighbour DR.. Schenck, with voice like a
| band of music, read that passage from the
Prayer-hook. than which nothing sublimer has
ever been written ''By the mystery of Thy holy
/ incarnation; by Thy holy nativity and circum-
cision; by Thy baptism, fasting and temptation;
| by Thine agony and bloody sweat; by Thy cross
| and passion; by Thy precious death and burial; by
| Thy glorious resurrection and ascension, and by
| the looming OF the Holy Ghost; in all time of
| frih loft all ipna of in
| the hour of death and in the day of judgment
| good Lord deliver u.s.
The antagonists of the Baptist Church say
that they believe only those will get to heaven
| who are baptized by immersion. False again.
They believe that all who accept Christ, wheth-
er they are baptized by drop on the fore
head or by plunge out OF sight In Ohio or Sus-
quehanna, will reach heaven. although the latter
| mode is the only gate into their particular soci-
ETY. in this world l have already made ar
rangements of communion with the close-com
munion Baptists on the other side the Jordan
| and ] shall be glad if the chalice passes to me
| directly from the lip and hand of my glorifed
friend. John Bowling, the king of Baptist minis
ters in former generation.
The antagonists of the Methodist Church say
that they believe man can convert himself,
and that conversion in that church is matter
of temporary emotion, and that man kneelS at
! the anxious bench and feels bad, and then the
minister pats him on the back and tells him he
is all right and that is all there is of it. False
| again. They believe that the Holy Ghost alone
can convert man. and conversion in that
church is by an earthquake of conviction and q
sunburst of pardon And as to temporary emo
| tion-LOrd give US all more of the temporary
emotion that lasted Matthew Simpson and Bsh-
op James half century, keeping them on fire
for God till their bodies burned out in his
| service.
All the denominations are msrepresented and
! belied as to their beliefs. The leading doctrines
of the evangelical churches are msrepresepted
as dry and dull and impossible. The infidels
and unconverted ministers in pulDits have
set up laugh at the Trinity one Cod but three
S nr Tne sgd he H he
But we have Trinity all around us. Trinity in
ourselves, body, mind and soul-body by which
we walk mind by which we calculate. soul by
which we love, but all three one man. Trinity in
the air: heat, light and moisture, but one atmos
phere. Trinity in the courtroom; three judges