The Mankato free press., 1888-08-10

advocacy for what believe to be the right,
the splendors of orthodoxy. Many have sup
posed that its disciples are people Of fat
skulls and no reading, and behind the age,
and the victims Of gullibility. shall show
you that the word orthodoxy stands for the
greatest splendors outside Of heaven. Be
hold the splendors of it's achievements. All
the missionaries Of the Gospel the world
round are men who believe In On entire Bible
Call the roll Of oil the missionaries who are
enduring sacrifices In the ends of the earth
for the cause Of religion and the worlds bet
terment, and they all believe in an entire
Bible just as soon as missionary begins
to doubt whether there ever was Garden of
Eden, or whether there Is any such thing as
future punishment, he comes right homo
from Beyrout or Madras and goes into the
insurance businessl ALI the missionary soci-
ties this day are oficered by orthodox men
and are supported by orthodox churches.
Orthodoxy, beginning with the Sandwich
Islands, has captured vast regions Of barba-
risrn for civilization, while heterodoxy has
to capture the first square inch. Blatant for
many years In Great Britain and the United
States, and strutting about with peacockian
braggadocio, 1t has yet to capture the first
continent, the first state, the first township,
the first ward, the first space Of ground as
big as you could cover with the small end Of
a sharp pin. Ninety-nine out of every hun
dred Of the Protestant churches Of America
were built by people who believed in an entire
Bible. The pulpit now may preach some
other gospel, but 1t Is a heterodox gun on an
orthodox carriage. The foundations of all
the churches that are of very great use in
this world today were laid by men who be-
heved the Bible from lid to lid, and If can
not take it In that way will not take 1t at
all; just as IL / received a letter that pre-
tended to come from friend, and part Of it
was his and part somebody else's, and the
other part somebody else's, and 1t was a sort
OF literary mongrelism, would throw the
garbled sheets into the waste basket.
No church Of very great influence today
but was built by those who believed In an
entire Bible Neither will church last long
built on a part Of the Bible. You have
noticed, suppose, that as soon as man be-
gins to give up the Bible he is apt to preach
In some hall, and he has an audience while he
lives, and when he dies the church dies If
thought that my church in Brooklyn was
built on a quarter Of a Bible, or a half
Bible, or three-q quarters of Bible, or ninety
nine one-hundredths of a Bible, I would
expect it to die when die; but when know
1t is built ON the entire Word Of God, I know
It will last two hundred years after you and
sleep the last sleep. Oh, the splendors of
an orthodoxy which with ten thousand hands
and ten thousand pglpits and ten thousand
Christian churches, is trying to save the
worldi
In Music hall, Boston, for many years
stood Theodore Parker battling orthodoxy,
giving it, as some supposed at that time, its
death wound. He was the most fascinating
man ever heard or ever expected to hear,
and came out from hearing him thinking,
In my boyhood way: "Well, that's the death
Of the church" On that same street, and
not far from being opposite, stood Park Con-
gregational church, called by its enemies
"Hell Fire Corner" Theodore Parker died
and his church died with him; or, If it Is in
existence, it Is 50 small you cannot see it
with the naked eye. Park Congregational
church still stands on "Hell Fire Corner,n
laundering away the magnificent truths of
this glorious orthodoxy just as though Theo-
dore Parker had never lived All that Bos-
ton, or Brooklyn, or New York, or the world
ever got that is worth having came through
the wide aqueduct of orthodoxy from the
throne of God.
Behold the splendors Of character built I'D
by orthodoxy. Who had the greatest hu-
man intellect the world ever ever knew3
Paul In physical stature insignificant: In
mind, head and shoulders above all the
giants of the age Orthodox from scalp TO
heel Who was the greatest poet the ages
ever saw, acknowledged to bcso both by In
fdels and Christiansl John Milton, seeing
more without eyes than anybody else ever
saw with eyes. Orthodox from scalp to heel
Who was the greatest reformer the world
has ever seen, so acknowledged by infidels as
well as by Christiansi Martin Luther. Or
ehodox from scalp to heel
Theu look at the certitudes. o man, be-
Heving in an entire Bible, where did you
come FRONT Answer: 81 descended from a
perfect parentage in Paradise, and Jehovah
breathed into my nostrils the breath of life.
am son of God" o man, believing In a
half and half Bible, believing in a Bicle in
spots, where did you come FRONT Answer:
st Is all uncertain; In my ancestral line
away back there was an ourang- -outang and
a tadpole and pollywog, and it took mill
ions of years to get me evoluted" o man,
believing In q Bible In spots, where
are you going to when you quit
this world2 Answer: "Going into a
great to be, 30 on into the great Somewhere,
and then shall pass through on into the
great anywhere, and shall probably arrive
In the nowhere" That Is where l thought
you would fatch up. o man, believing In an
entire Bible, and believing with all your
heart, where are you going to when you
leave this worldi Answer: 81 am going to
my fathers house; am going into the COM
panionship of my loved ones who have gone
before; am going to leave all my sins, and
am going to be with God and like God for
ever and forever" Oh, the glorious certi-
tudes of orthodoxy
Behold the splendors Of orthodoxy In its
announcement of two destinies.
Palace and penitentiary. Palace with
gates on all sides, through which all may
enter and live on celestial luxuries world
without end, and all for the knocking and
the asking. A palace grander than If all the
Alhambras and the Versailles and the Wind
sor castles and the Winter gardens and the
imperial abodes Of all the earth were heaved
up into one architectural glory. At the other
end of the universe a penitentiary, where
men who want their sins can have them.
Would It be fair that you and should have
our choice of Christ and the palace and other
men be denied their choice Of sii and eternal
degradationi Palace and penitentiary. The
first Of no use unless you have the last
Brooklyn and New York would be better
places to live in with Raymond Street Jail
and the Tombs and Sing Sing and all the
smallpox hospitals emptied on them than
heaven would be If there were no hell Pal
ace and penitentiary. II see man with a
full bowl of sin, and he thirsts for IL, and his
whole nature Graves it, and he takes hold
with both hands and presses that bowl to his
lips, and then presses it hard between his
teeth, and the draught begins to pour its
sweetness down his throat, shall we snatch
away the bowl, and jerk the man up to the
gate Of heaven, and push him in IL he does
not want to go and sit down and sing psalms
foreveri No. God has made you and me so
completely free that we need not go to heavsn
unless we prefer It. Not more free to soar
than free to sink.
Nearly all the heterodox people know be-
heve all are coming out at the same destiny;
without regard to faith or character we are
all coming out at the shining gate There
they are, all in glory together Thomas
Paine and George Whitefeld, Jezebel and
Mary Lyon, Nero and Charles Wesley,
Charles Guiteau and James A Garfield,
John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln
ali In glory togetherl All the Innocent men,
women and children who were massacred,
side by side with their murderers. II we
are all coming out at the same destiny, with
out regard to character, then 1t is true
turn away from such debauched heaven
Against that caldron Of piety and bias
phemy, philanthropy and assassination, self
sacrifice and beastliness, place the two des-
TIMES of the Bible forever and forever and
forever apart
Behold also the splendors of the Christian
orthodox deathbeds.
Those who deny the Bible, or deny any
part Of it, never die well They yeither go out
In darkness or they 90 ont In silence porten-