The Indianapolis journal., 1885-10-19
THE TABERNACLE SERMONS.
Answer to the Question, "Shall We Have
Another Chance in the Next WOrld?"
The Preacher Declares Such an Expectation
Chimerical, and Holds that All Prepara-
tiOn Must Be Made on Earth.
pecial to the Indianapolis Journal

Brown opened the services in the Brooklyn
Tabernacle this morning, with the organ solo
''Sonata in G Minor" by Rheinberger. DR..
Talmage read and expounded the thirty. first
chapter of the First Book of Samuel showing
that the old grudge between the Phillistines and
the Israelites was kept good and that people
generally die as the live. The hymn sung was:
When thou. my righteous Judge shalt come
To take Thy ransomed people home.
Shall | among them stand2
Shall such worthless worm as L
Who sometimes am afraid to die
Be found at Thy right hanGs
The subject of the sermon was: "Sball We
Have Another Chance in the Next Worlds" The
text was from Ecclesastes, xi, 3: eff the tree
fall toward the South or toward the North, in
tie place whore the tree falleth there it shall
be-" Following is the sermon in full:
There is lowering hope in the minds of
vast multitude that there will be an opportunity
in the next world to correct the mistakes of
this; that, if we do make complete shipwreck of
our earthly life, it will be on shore up which
we may walk to palace; that, as defendant
may lose his case in the Circuit Court and carry
it up to the Supreme Court or Court of Chanc-
cry, and get reversal of judgment in his be-
half, all the costs being thrown on the other
party so, if we fail in the earthly trial, may
in the higher jurisdiction of eternity have the
judgment of the lower court set aside, all the
costs rerlitted, and we be victorious defendants
forever.
My object in this sermon is to show that COM
mon sense, as we'll as my text declares that such
an expectation is chimerical. You say that the
| impenitent man having got into the next world
and seeing the disaster, will, as result Of that
disaster, turn, the pain the of his reforma-
ton. But you can find ten thousand instances
in this world of men who have done wrong and
distress overlook them suddenly. Did the dis
tress heal them9 No: they went right on.
That man was flung of designations 'You
must stop drinking" said the doctor, sand quit
the fast life you are leading or it will destroy
YOU" The patient suffers paroxysm after par
oXysm, but. under skillful medical treatment, he
begins to sit UP, begins to walk about the room
begins to go to business. And 10! he goes back
| to the same erog shops for his morning dram,
and his evening dram, and the drams between.
| Flat down again. Same doctor. Same physical
| anguish Same medical warning Now the i'll
ness is more protracted. the liver is more stub
| born, the stomach more irritable and the digest
| while he is out again, goes back to the same
| dram-s shops, and goes the same round of sac
rilege against his physical health. He sees that
his downward course is running his household;
| that his life is perpetual perjury against his
marriage VOW; that that broken hearted woman
| is SO unlike the roseate young wife that he mar
| ried that her old schoolmates do not recog-
| nze her; that his sons are to be taunted for
a lifetime by the fathers drunkenness; that the
daughters are to pass into life under the scarif-
cation of disreputable ancestor. He is drink
| ing up their happiness their prospects for this
| life and perhaps for the life to come. Sometimes
| an appreciation Of what he is doing comes upon
him. His nervous system is ali jangle From
| crown of head to sole of foot he is one aching
| rasping. crucifying, damning torture. Where IS
| he2 In hell on earth. Does it reform hima AZ
| ter while he has delirium tremens. with whole
| Jungle of Kissing reptiles let out on his pillow,
and his screams horrisy the neighbors as he
| dashes out of his bed, crying: take these
| things off of mel" AS he sits, pale and GONZALES
cent, the doctor says Nov. I want to have a
| plain talk with you, my dear fellow The next
attack of this kind you will have, you will be
| beyond all medical skill, and you will die. He
gets better, and rgoes forth into the same round
| again. This time medicine takes no effect. Con
sultatior of physicians agree in saying there is
| no hope. Death ends the scene.
| A DIScoURAGING PROSPECT
That process of inebration, warning and dis.
solution is going on within stones throw of this
| church; going on in ali the neghborhoods of
Christendom. Pain does not correct. Suffering
does not reform. What is true in one sense is
true in all senses, and will forever be So and yet
men expecting in the next world purgatorial
regeneration. Take up the printed reports of
the prisons of the United States, and you will
| find that the vast majority of the incarcerated
| have been there before; some of them four, five
six times. With million illustrations all work
ing the other way in this world, people are ex-
| pecting that distress in the next state will be
salvable. You cannot imagine any worse torture
| in any other world than which some men have
suffered here, and without any salutary conse-
| quence.
Furthermore: The prospect of a reformation
in the next world is more improbable than ref
or,naton here. In this world the life started
with innocence of infancy In the case supposed
the other life will open with all the accumulated
bad habits of many years upon him. Surely it
is easier to build strong ship out of new timber
than out of an old hulk that has been ground up
in the breakers. If with innocence to start with
III this life, man does not become godly, what
prospect is there that in the next world, starting
with sin, seraph should be evouted Surely
| the sculptor has more prospect of making fine
statute out of a block Of pure white Parian mar
BILE than out of an old black rock scanned and
cracked with the storms of a half century.
Surely upon clean white sheet of paper it is
| easier to write a deed will than upon a sheet
Hof paper all scrbbed and blotted and torn from
top TO bottom. Yet men to think that,
though the life that began here comparatively
perfect turned out badly. the next life will sue
ceed though it starts with a dead failure.
But" says some one, II think we ought to
have chance in the next life because this life
is so short it allows only small opportunity. We