The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-05-18

Bible because of the idea OF future punish
ment for the same reason that criminals hate
the penitentiary. Oh, have heard this brave
talk about people fearing nothing of the
consequences Of sin in the next world, and
have made up my mind it is merely a
towards whistling to keep his courage up.
have seen men faunt their immoralities in
the face Of the community, and have heard
them defy the Judgment day and scott at the
idea Of any future consequence Of their sin;
but when they came to die they shrieked
until you could hear them for nearly two
blocks, and in the summer night the neigh
bors got up to put the windows down because
they could not endure the horror.
would not want to see a rail train with
five hundred Christian people on board go
down through drawbridge into a watery
grave. would not want to see five hundred
Christian people 60 into such disaster, but /
tell you plainly that could more easily see
that than could for any protracted time
were of elder down and under a canopy of
vermilion. have pever been able to brace
up my nerves for such a spectacle. There is
something at such time SO indescribable in
the countenance just looked in upon it for
minute or two, but the clutch of his fist
was so diabolic, and the strength of voice
was so unnatural, l could not endure it.
"There is no hell, there is no hell, there is no
hell" the man had said for sixty years; but
that night when / looked in the dying room
of my infidel neighbor, there was something
on his countenance which seemed to say:
'There is, there is, there is, there isl"
The mightiest restraints today against
theft, against immortality, against lbertin-
ism, against crime of all sorts--the mightiest
restraints are the retributions of eternity
Men know that they can escape the law, but
down in the offenders soul there is the reali-
cation Of the fact that they canno; escape
God He stands at the end of the road of
prof1igacy, and he will not clear the guilty.
Take all idea of retribution and punishment
out of the hearts and minds of men, and it
would not be long before Brooklyn and New
York and Boston and Charleston and Chi
cago became Sodoms. The only restraints
against the evil passions of the world today
are Bible restraints.
Suppose now these generals Of atheism
and infidelity got the victory, and suppose
they marshaled a great army made up of the
majority of tho world. They are in COM
panies, In regiments, in brigades-the whole
army. Forward march! We hosts Of infidels
and atheists, banners flying before, banners
flying behind, banners inscribed with the
words: "No Godl No Christi No punish
mentl No restraints! Down with the Biblei.
Do as you pleased" The sun turned into dark
ness.
Forward, march! ye great army of infidels
and atheists! And first of all you will attack
the churches. Away with those houses of
worshipl They have been standing there so
long and deluding the people with consola-
ton in their bereavements and sorrows. All
those churches ought to be extirpated; they
have done SO much to relieve the lost and
bring home the wandering, and they have so
long held up the idea of eternal rest after the
paroxysm Of this life is over. Turn the St.
Peters and ST. Pauls and the temples and
tabernacles into club houses Away with
those churchesl
Forward, march! we great army of in
fidels and atheists, and next of all they scat
ter the Sabbath schools-the Sabbath schools
filed with bright eyed, bright checked little
ones, who are singing songs on Sunday after
noon, and getting instruction when they
ought to be on the street corners playing
marbles or swearing on the common. Away
with them! Forward, march, ye great army
of infideis and atheists, and next of all they
tions of mercy supported by Christian phil.
anthropies. Never mind the blind eyes and
the deaf ears and the crippled limbs and the
weakened intellects. Let paralyzed old age
pick up its own food, and orphans fight their
own way, and the half reformed go back to
thsir evil habits. Forward, march, ye great
army OF infidels and atheist and with your
battle axes hew down the cross and split up
the nianger of Bethlehem.
On, ye great army of inldels and atheists,
and now they come to the graveyards and
the cemeteries of the earth. Pull down the
sculpture above Grecnwood's gate, for it
means the resurrection. Tear away at the
entrance of Laurel Hill the figure of Old
Mortality and the chisel On, We great army
of infidcls and atheists, into the graveyards
and the GENE. cries; and where you see
"Asleep in Jesus" cut it away, and where
you find marble story of heaven, blast it,
and where you find over little child's grave,
"Suffer little children to come unto me-"
substitute the words ''delusion" and "sham,"
and where You find an angel in marble, strike
off the wings, and when you come to a family
vault, chisel on the door: dead once, dead
forever"
But on, ye great army of inidels and
atheists, on! They will attempt to scale
heaven. There are heights to be taken. Pile
hill on hill and Pelion upon Ossa, and then
they hoist the ladders against the walls of
heaven. On and on until they blow up the
foundations of jasper and the gates of pearl
They charge up the steep Now they aim
for the throne of him who hveth forever
and ever. They would take down from their
high place the Father, the Son, the Holy
Ghost Down with themp they say.
AN hn I'll
"Down foreverl Down out of sightl He is
not God Hell noright to sit there. Down
with him! Down with Christi
A world without a head, universe with
out king. Orphan consultations. Father
less galaxies Anarchy supreme A de-
throned Jehovah An assassinated God.
Parricide, regicide, decide That is what
they mean. That is what they will have, if
they can, if they can, if they can. Civiliza-
ton hurled back into standardization, and
semi barbarism driven back into Hottcntot
savagery. The wheel of progress turned the
other way, and turned toward the dark ages.
The clock of the centuries put back 1900
years Go back, you Sandwich Islands, from
your schools and from your colleges, and
from your reformed condition, to what you
were In 1920, when the missionaries first
came Call home the 500 missionaries from
India and overthrow their 1000 schools,
where they are trying to educate the
heather, and scatter the 10000 lit
tie children that they have gathered
out of barbarism into civilization OBJ
literate all the work of DR.. Duff in India,
of David Abecl in China, of DIR. King in
Greece, of Judson in Burmah, of David
Brainard amid the American aborigines, and
send home the three thousand missionaries
of the cross who are toiling in foreign lands,
toiling for Christ's sake, toiling themselves
into the grave. Tell these three thousand
men of God that :hey are Of no use. Send
home the medical missionaries who are doc
toring the bodies as well as the souls of the
nations. Go home. London missionary So
ciety. Go home, American board of foreign
missions. Go hcme, So Moravians, and re-
inquish back into darkness and squalor and
filth and death the nations whom ye have
begun to lift
Oh my friends, there has never been such
a nefarious plot on earth as that which inf
deity and atheism have planned. We were
shocked n few years ago because of the at
tempt to blow up the parliament houses in
London; but if infidelity and atheism sue
coed in their attempt they will dynamite a
world. Let them have their full way and
this world will be q habitation of three rooms
"a habitation with just three rooms the
one q madhouse, another a lazaretto, the
other pandemonium. These infdel bands
of music have only just begun their concert
yea. they have only been stringing their
instruments. I today put before you their
whole programme from beginning unto
close. In the>theatre the tragedy comes first
and the farce afterward; but in this infidel
drama of death the farce comes first and the
tragedy afterward. And in the former athe-
lists and infidels laugh and mock, but in the
latter God himself will laugh and mock. He