St. Landry democrat., 1885-05-30
AN OLD QUESTION.
Why Does God Permit Satan and
Sin to Exist ?
DR.. TaImage's Answers to This Question,
which Has Bothered Many Minds
Since Job-God's Long-suffering
Patience and Great Mercy.

recent sermon was: "Why does God per-
NIT Satan and sin 10 exist when, with one
blow, He might annihilate them?" The
text was Job xxi, Il; Wherefore do the
wicked live?" Following is the sermon:
JOB.
Poor Job! with tusks, with stings, with
horns, with hoofs-all the misfortunes of
life came on him at once. Bankruptcy, be-
reavement, standardization, eruptive dis
ease SO irritating that he had to reinforce
his ten finger nails by a piece Of earthen-
ware to scratch himself withal. His wife
took the diagnosis of his complaints and
prescribed for him profanity. She thought
he would feel better if between the par
oxysms of pain and grief he would swear
a little. For each boil a plaster of objur-
cation. P.obably no man was ever moro
tempted to take this bad advice than was
job when at last his three exasperating
friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and zophar, came
to comfort him, saying in substance: "You
old sinner, this serves you right. All this
is because you are a hypocrite. What a
sight you are! God has chastised you for
your wickedness." The disfgured invalid
lifts his swollen eye-lids and puts down
the piece of broken saucer with which he
had been rubbing his arms and tells his
garrulous group of friends that it is often
the wicked who have the best health and
the most prosperity, and in this connection
hurls the question which every man and
woman that ever existed has at some con-
juncture of events asked: ''Why do the
wicked lfvesp
They build up fortunes that overshadow
the earth and confound all the life-insur
ance tables on the subject of longevity,
someiof them dying octogenarians, or, per-
haps, nonogenarians, or possibly cente-
narians-Ahab in the palace, and Naboth
in the cabin; unclean Herod on the throne,
and Paul, the consecrated, twisting ropes
for tent-making; Manassah, the worst Of
all the K ngs of Juda, lived the longest.
While the general rule is that the wicked
do not live out half their days, there are
instances where they live to great agein
paradises of beauty and luxury, with a
whole college of physicians expanding it's
skill in the attempt for further prolonga-
ton, and then have funeral with casket
under mountains of Gala lily, and pro-
cession with all the finest equipage
OF the city flashing and jingling
into line, taking the poor angle-worm
with a pomp that might make the
passing spirit from some other world
think that the Archangel Michael was
dead. Coup among the great residences
of our cities and read the door-plates, and
see how many of them hold the names Of
men mighty for commercial or social iniq-
uity. Vampires of the nineteenth century
Gorgons Of the agesl Every wheel Of their
carriage is Tggernaut wet with the
blood of those sacrificed to their avarice
and evil design. Men who are like
Caligula, who wished that all the people
were in one neck, that he might cut it off
at one blow. Oh, the slain! the slain!
What procession of libertines, Of usurers,
of infamous quacks, of legal charlatans, of
world grabbing monsters! What apostles
of despoliation! What demons incarnate!
Thousands of men who have concentrated
all their energies OF body, mind and soul
into one prolonged and ever intensified and
unrelenting effort to sacrifice and blast
and consume the world / do not blame
you for asking the quivering, throbbing,
burning, resembling, appalling question of
the text ''Why do the wicked live?"
WHY THE WICKED LIVE.
First, they live to demonstrate beyond
controversy the long suffering patience of
God. You rouse up and say: ~ will not
stand it any 1onger;;" but perhaps you are
compelled to stand it. God, with all the
batteries of omnipotence loaded with thun-
derbolts stands it century after century.
Sometimes, | have no doubt, an angel
comes up and begs that he may unlimber
the batteries, crying: "Now is the time to
strike no." says God, 'swait year"
swat twenty years" "Wait century,"
s'Wait five hundred years" What God
doesfs not so wonderful as what He does
not do. He has enough reserve corps to
sweep from the earth Mormonism, Moham-
mechanism, Paganism in one day. He
could take all the frauds of New York
City on the west side of Broadway and in
an hour pitch them into the Hudson, and
all the frauds in New York on the east
side of Broadway and in an hour pitch
them into the East River He understands
the combination lock of every dishonest
money safe in Christendom, and could
blow it up quicker than by any earthly
explosive. Written all over the earth from
East to West and from North to South, and
all over history, are the words Divine
patience, Divine forbearance, Divine long,
suffering. It is wonder to me that God
did not burn up the world two thousand
years ago and scatter the ashes through
immensely, its Rrolites dropping into
other worlds and kept in their museums as
specimens Of defunct planet. People
talk Of God as though He were hasty with
His judgments and snapped man up
quick. No! Before the ancient deIuge
the people were warned one hundred and
twenty years to get aboard Noah's ark.
WIZ do tha 1uiekad liyal To rnnl-n IL Z