The Russellville Democrat., 1888-08-16
PRICE FIVE CENTS.

presses that bowl to his lips, and then presses it hard botween his teeth, and tho draught begins to P ,ur its sweetness down his throat shall we snatch awaf the bowl, and jerk the man up 10 the gate of Heaven, and push him in if he does not want to 20 aud sit down and sing psalms forevers No. God has made you and me so completely freo thatw need not go to Heaven unless NC prefer it. Not more free to soar than to sink
 Nearly all the hoterodox people know believe all arc coming out at the same destiny; without re garl to faith or char acter, we gre all coming out at the shin- ing gate. There they are, all in glory to- gether. Thomas Paine aad George Whitef.ld, Jezabel and Mary Lyon, Nero and Charles Wesley, Charles Guiteau and James A. Garheld John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln-all in glory togetheri All the innocent men, women and children who were massacred. side by side with their murderers. I f we are all coming out at the same destiny, with out regard to character, then it is true, turn away from such q debauched Heaven. Against that cauIdrou of piety and blasphemy, philanthropy and assas- sination, self sacrifice and beastlness, I place the two destiuies of the Bible. for ever and forever and forever apart
 Behold also the splendors of the Chris tian orthodox death-beds.
 Those who deny the Bible or deny any part of it never die we'll They either go out in darkness or they go out in silence portentous. You may gather up all the biographies that have come forth since the art Of printing was invented, and l challenge you to show me triumphant death of man who reje cted the Script ures, or rejected any part of them. Here I make great wide avenue. On the one I put the death beds of those who be- lieved in an entire Bible. On the other side of that avenue put the death-beds of those wh rejected part of the Bible, or rejected all of the Bible. Now take my arm and let us pass through this dividing avenue. Look off upon the right side. Here are the death beds on the right side of this avenue: "Victory drought our Lord Jesus Christ' Free grace v' ssGlory. gloryl" sI am sweeping through the gates washed in the blood of the Lambp' "The chariots are coming p' '1 mount, I fyv' "Wings, wiugsw "They are coming for mc!' Peace, be 'stillp Alfred Cookman', eath-bed, Richard Cecil's death- bed, Commodore Foote's death bed, your father's death bod, your mother's death bed, your sisters death bed, your child's death bed. Ten thou- sand radiant, songful death-beds of those whs believed an entire Bible.
 Now, take my arm and let us go through that avenue and look off upon the other side. No smile of hope. No shout of trump. No face supernaturally illu-
 mined. Those who reject any part of the
 Bible never die we'll. No beckoning for
 angles to come. No listening for tho
 celestial escort. Without any exception
 they go out of the world because they are
 pushed out; while, on the other hand, the list of those who believed in an entire Bible and gone out Of the world in tri- umph is Q list so long it seems intermin- able. Oh, is not that splendid fn- | fuence, this orthodoxy, which makes that which must otherwise be the most dread | full hour of life--the last hour--positively | paradisaica
 | Young mon, old men, middie-aged | men, take sides in this contest between l orthodoxy and heterodoxy.
 Ask for the old paths, walk therein, and ye | shall find rest for your souls.
 | But you fellow this crusade against any
 part of the Bible-frst of ak you will | give up Genesis, which is as true as l Matthew: then you will give up all tho
 historical parts of the Bible; then after
 awhile you will give up the miracles; l thsp you will find it convenient to give up | the Ten Commandments; and then after awhile you will wake up in afountainless, 1 rookless, treeless desert swept of ever
 las ting siroceo. If you are laughed Ut you can afford to be laughed at for stand | ing by the Bible just as God has given it l to you and miraculously preserved 1t. | Do not jump overheard from the stanch | old Great Eastern of old-fashioned
 orthodoxy until there is something ready 1 to take you up stronger than the fantastic | yawl which has painted on the side "Ad- yanced Thought" and which leaks at the | prov and leaks at the stern, and has | steel pen for one and glib tongue for l tho othsr ore, and now tips ovor this way | and then tips ovor that way, until you do | not know whether the passengers will land in the breakers of despair or on the | sinking sand of infdelity and atheism. I am in full sympathy with the ad- vancements of our time, but this world will never advance single inch beyond l this old Bible. God was just as capable of dictating the truth to the prophets and apostles us He IS capable of dictating the truth to these modern apostles and prophets. God has not learned any thing 1 in a thousand years. He knew just as much when He gave the first dictation as l He does now, giving the last dictati if | He is giving any dictation at all. So | will stick to the old paths. Naturally a | skeptic, and preferring now things to old, | never so much as to. day felt the truth | of the entire Bible, especially as l see. | into what spectacular imbecility mon
 rush when they try to chop up the Script | ures with the msat-axe of their own
 preferences; now calling upon philoso- phy, now calling upon the Church, now | calling on God. now calling on the devil. l prefer the thick, warm robe of the old rellgion--old as God-the robe which has | kept many warm amid the cold pilgrim age of this life and amid the chills of
 death The old robe, rather than the thin, uncertain gauge offered us by these wise-
 acres who believe the Bible in spots. | On July 27, 1874, at seventy-two years of | age, expired Isabella Graham. She was
 the most useful woman of her day amid | the poor and sick, at the head of the or phan asylums and Magdalen asylums, and an angel of mercy in hospital and ! reformatory. Dr. Mason, one of the mtyhtiest men of his day, said at her | funeral that she was mentally and spirit | ualiy the most wonderfully endowed per-
 son he had ever met She was an imper-
 sonation of the most orthodox orthodoxy
 Her last word was peace. As a subl ime peroration to my sermon l will give an
 extract from her last will and testament,
 showing how one who believes in an
 entire Bible may make glorious exit;
 My children and my grandchildren I
 leave to my covenant God, the God who
 hath fed me all my life with the bread
 that pe-isheth and the bread that never
 perisheth, who has been father 10 my
 fatherless children and a husband to their
 widowed mother thus far. And now, re-
 ceiving my Redeemer's testimony, l set
 to my seal that God is true; and believing tho record of John that God hath given To
 me eternal lite, and this life is in His
 Son. who, through the eternal Spirit, oyer-
 comes without spot unto God, and be-
 ing consecrated a priest hath with
 His own blood entered into the
 holy place. having obtained eternal re-