The Indianapolis journal., 1885-10-19


eors-all their sins forgiven--have passed on into
beatlfic state, and consequently the unsaved
will be lett alone 1t cannot be expected that
Dr. DUH. who exhausted himself in teaching
Hlndoos the way TO heaven. and DR.. Abeel, who
gave his life IN the evangeliZation of China, and
Adoniram Judson, who toiled for the redemption
OF Borneo, should be sent down by some celes-
tlal missionary society to educate those who
wasted all their earthly existence. Evangelstic
and missionary efforts are ended. The entire
kingdom OF the morally bankrupt by themselves,
where are the savaole influences to come froms
Can one speckled and bad apple in barrel of
diseased apples turn the other apples goodf
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 nsolvents? Can million wrongs
make one right? Poneropois was city where
King Philip of Thracia put all the bad people of
his kingdom. If any man had opened primary
school at Poneropos l do not think the parents
from other cities would have sent their children
there. Instead of amendment in the other world,
all the associations, now that the good are
evolved, will be degenerating and down. You
would not want to send man TO a cholera or
yellow fever hospital for his health, and the
great lazaretto of the next world, containing the
diseased and plague-struck, will be poor place
TOR moral recovery. If the surround
ings in this world were crowded of
temptation, the surroundings in the next
world, after the righteous have passed up
and on, will be thousand per cent. more
crowded of temptation. The Count of Chateau
BRAND made his little son sleep at night at the
top Of a castle turret where the winds howled
and where spectres were said to haunt the place,
and while the mother and sisters almost died
with fright the tells that the process
gave him nerves that could not tremble, and
courage that never faltered. But [ don't think
that towers of darkness and the spectral world
swept by Sirocco and Euroclydon will over fit
one for the land Of eternal sunshine / wonder
what is the curriculum of that College of In
ferno. where, after proper preparation by the
sins OF this life, the candidate enters, passing on
from freshman class of depravty, to sophomore
of abandonment, and from sophomore to junior,
and from junior to senior, and day of gradua-
ton comes, and with diploma signed by Satan,
the president, and other PROFESSIONAL de-
moniacs. attesting that the candidate
has been long enough under their drill. hepasses
up to enter heaven. Pandemonium a preparative
course for heavenly admission. All. my friends
Satan and his cohorts have fitted uncounted
multitudeS for ruin, but never fitted one soul
for happiness.
PLAN THAT WOULD NOT BE SAFE.
Furthermore 1t 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 it up
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
unforgven here it will not be we'll for us in the
next existence, is the chief influence that keeps
civilization from rushing back to semi -barbarism
and eml-barbarsm from rushing into midnight
savagery. and midnight savagery from
tncton; for it is the astringent impression of all
nations, Christian ana heather. that there is no
future chance for those who have wasted this
Multitudes of men who are kept within bounds
would say: "Go to, now Let me get all out of
this life there, is in it. Come gluttcny, and
inebriaton, a tl uncleanness, and revenge and
all sensualities. and wait upon me. My life may
be somewhat shortened in this world by disso-
luteness, but that will only make heavenly in
dulgence on larger scale the sooner possible.
[ will overtake the saints at last. and will enter
the heavenly temple only little later than
those who behaved themselves here | will on
my way to heaven take a little wider excursion
than those who were earth pous, and shall
60 to heaven via Gehenna and via sheol."
Another chance in the next world means free
license and wild abandonment in this
suppose you were party IN an important case
at law, and you knew, from consultation with
judges and attorneys that it would be tried twice.
and the first trial it would be of little Importance
but that the second would decide everything
for which trial would you make the most prep
aration. for which retain the ablest attorneys
for which be most anxious about the attendance
of witnesses? You would put all the stress upon
the second trial all the anxiety, all the expendi
tufe. saying, lIrst nothing. the last IS
everything" Give the race assurance of sec
ond and more important trial in the subsequent
life, and all the preparation for eternity would
Oe post-mortem poSt-funeral, post-sepulchral
and the world. with one jerk, be pitched off into
impiety and godlessness.
Furthermore Let me ask why a chance in the
next world, If we have refused innumerable
chances in thisf Suppose you give banquet.
and you invite vast number of friends but ono
man declines to come, or treats your invitation
with indifference. You, in the course of twenty
years. give twenty banquets, and the same mar
is invited to them all, and treats them all in the
same obnoxious way. After while YOU remove
to another house, larger aud better, and you
again invite your friends, but send no invitation
to the man who declined or neglected the other
invitations. Are you to blame9 Has he right
to expect to h invited. after all the indignities
he has done you! God in this world has invited
us all to the banquet Of his grace He in
vited us by His providence and His spirit
365 days of every year since we knew our
right hand from our left. If we declined it
every time, or treated the invitation with indif-
ference, and gave twenty or forty, or fifty years
of indignity on our part toward the banQueter
and at last he spreas the banquet in more lux
urious and kingly place, amid the heavenly gar
dens. have we a right to expect Him to invite us
again? and have we right to blame Him if he
does not invite usl If twelve gates Of salvation
stood open twenty years or fifty years for our
admission, and at the end of that time they are
closed, can we complain of it. and say: "These
gates ought to be open again. Give us another
chance" If the steamer is to sail for Hamburg.
and we want to get to Germany by that line and
we read in every evening and every morning
newspaper that it will sail on a certain day. for
two weeks we have that advertisement before
our eyes, and then we 60 down TO the docks fif-
teen minutes after it has showed off into the
stream and say: "Come back. Give me anoth-
er chance 1t is not fair to treat me In this way.
Swing up to the dock again, and throw out the
planks. and let me come on board" Such be-
havior would invite arrest madman. And
if after the gospel ship mas lain at anchor before
our eyes for years, and years. and years, and all
the benign voices of earth and heaven have urged
US to get on board, as she might sail away any mo-
ment and after awhile she sails without us, is it
common sense to expect her to come backl You
might as well go out on the Highlands at Never
sink. and call to the Aurania. after she has been
three days out and expect her to return as to
0nn hao cd fca~ IL. 4