St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-10-19

ritable and the digestive organs are more re-
bellious. But after awhile he is out again,
goes back to the same dram-shops and goes
the same round of sacrilege against his
physical health. He sees that his down
ward course is running his household, that
his life is a perpetual perjury against his
marriage VOW, that that broken-hearted
woman is so unlike the rOseate young wife
that he married that her old schoolmateS
do not recognize her, that his SONS are to be
TAINTED FOR A LIFETIME
by the fathers drunkenness, that the daugh-
tiers are to pass into life under the scarifca-
ton of disreputable ancestor. He is
drinking 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 sys-
TEN is all jangle From crown of head to
sole of foot he is one aching, rasping. cru
cifying, damning torture. Where is he? In
hell on earth. Does it reform him? After
while he has delirium tremens, with
whole jungle of kissing reptiles let out on
his pillow, and his screams. horrify the
neighbors as he dasheS out of his bed. cry
ing: ''Take these things off of mep' AS
he sits, pale and convalescent, the doctor
says: '!Now, want to have a plain talk
with you, my dear fellow. The next attack
of this kind you will have you will be be-
yond all medical skill, and you will die"
He gets better and goes forth into the same
round again. This time medicine takes no
effect. Consultation of physicians agree in
saying there is no hope Death ends the
scene. That process of inebriation, warn
ing and dissolution is going on within
stones throw of this church, going on in
Il the neighborhOods of christendom. Pain
does not correct. Suffering does not re-
form. What is true in one sense is true in
all senses, and will forever be so, and yet,
men are expecting in the next world purga-
torial rejuvenation. 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 a million illustrations all
working the other way in this world peo-
| pie imagine that distress in the next state
will be salvable. You cannot imagine any
worse torture in any other world than that
which some men have suffered here and
! without any salutary consequence. Fur
| thermore, the prospect of a reformation in
| the next world is more improbable than a
reformation here. In this world life is
started with the 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 n'this life man does not be-
come godly, what prospect is there that in
the next world, starting with sin, seraph
should be evoluted? Surely the sculptor
has more prospect of making fine statue
Nf Ioa1- -Of,1, ita
| than out of an old blast rock. scanned and
cracked with the storms of half a century,
Surely upon a clean white sheet of paper
it is easier to write deed or will than upon
a sheet of paper all scribbled and blotted
| and torn from top to bottom. Yet men
seem to think that, though the life that
began here
COMPARATIVELY PERFECT
turned out badly, the next life will succeed,
| though it starts with dead failure
But says some one. 81 think we ought
to have chance in the next life, because
this life is so short it allows only small op-
portunity We hardly have time to turn
around between cradle and tomb, the wood
of the one almost touching the marble of
the other" But do you know what made
the ancient deluge necessity? 1t was the
longevity of the antedlasians. They were
| were WOIS0 Ill lIlS SGCOlIu CGICuIy Ol bll6lf
| lifetime than in the first hundred years, and
! still worse in the third century, and still
worse all the way on to 700, 500 and 900
years, and the world had to be washed and
scrubbed, and soaked and anchored clear
out of sight for more than month before
! it could be made fit for decent people to
iveon. Longevity never cures impenitency.
| All the pictures of Time represent him with
| a scythe to cut, but l never saw any picture
of Time with case of medicine to heal
| Seneca says that Nero. for the first five
years of his public life, was set up for an
example of clemency and kindness, but his
path all the way descended until at 6S he
became a suicide. If 500 years did not
make antediluvians any better, but only
made them worse, the ages of eternity
could have no effect except prolongation of
| depravity. But" says some one, ''in
THE FUTURE STATE
evil surroundings will be Withdrawn and
elevated influences substituted, and hence
expurgation and sublimation and glorIfca-
tion." But the righteous, all their sins for
given, have passed on into beatific state,
and consequently the unsaved will be left
alone Evangelistic and missionary efforts
are ended. The entire kingdom of the
morally bankrupt by themselves. where are
one speckled and bad apple in barrel of
diseased apples turn the Otherapples good?
Can those who are themselves down help
others up? Can those who have themselves
| failed in the business of the soul pay the
debts of their spiritual insolvents? Can
million wrongs make one right?
Furthermore, it would not be safe for
this world if men had another chance in
the next. If it had been announced that
however wickedly man might act in this
world he could fix itup all right in the next
society would be terribly demoraliZed and
the human race demolished in few years.
The fear that if we are bad and unfOrgiven
here it will not be well for us in the next
existence, is the chief influence that keeps
civilization from rushing back to semi
barbarism, and semi-barbarism from rush
ing into midnight sa avagery, and midnight
savagery from extinction, for it is the astrin-
gent impression of all nations, Christian
and heathen, that there is no future chance
for those who
HAVE WASTED THIS.
Multitudes of men who are kept WithiT
bounds would say: go to now! Let me
get all out of this life there is in it. Come
gluttony and inebriation, and uncleanness
} and revenge, and all sensualities, and wal
upon me- My life may be somewhat short
ened in this world by disSoluteness, bu
that will only make heavenly indulgence OIL
large scale the sooner possible. l will
overtake the saints at last, and Will entel
the heavenly temple only little later thai
2 those who behaved themselves here. / will
on my way to heaven take little wide
excursion than those who were on eartl
l pious, and l shall go to heaven via Gehenni
and via Sheol." Another chance in the mex
| rOr.11 nd will 4
l abandonment in this. You see tina
| tL,ic idnn Lee ho ruorld M, frr,n