The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1888-08-16

/ foreverF No. God has made you anu me
so completely free that we need not go to
| Heaven unless we prefer it. Not more
| free TO soar than to sink.
Nearly all the heterodoN people know
| believe all are coming out at the same
destiny; without regard to faith or char
acter, we are oil coming out at the Shin
ing gate. There they are, all in glory to-
| gethcr. Thomas Paine and George
| Whitefleld, Jezebel and Mary Lyon. Nero
and Charles Wesley, Charles Guiteau and
| James A. Garfield. John Wilkes Booth
! and Abraham LinCOln-all in glory
/ togetherl 4 II the Innocent men, women
| and children who we're massacred, SIDE
| by side with their murderers. II we are
/ all coming out at the same destiny, with
out gard TO character, then il is true, !
turn away from such debauohed
Heaven. Against that cauldron of piety
and blasphemy, philanthropy and assas-
sination, self-sacriace and beastliness, ]
place the two destinies OF the Bible for
ever and forever and forever apart.
Behold also the splendors Of the Chris
tian orthodox death-beds.
Those who deay the Bible, or deny any
part OF il, never die we'll. They either go
out in darkness or they so out in silence
portentous. You may gather up all the
biographies that have come forth since
the art Of printing was invented, and
challenge you to show me triumphant
death of a man who rejected the Script
ures, or re- eoted any part of them. Here
make great wide avenue. On the one
/ 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 who rejected part of the Bible,
~ al Of Ia
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 Christw Free graceW
GLORY, glory" 81 am sweeping through
the gates washed in the blood of tie
Lamb 7" 1.-THE chariots are coming" Il
mount, l AZ" "Wiugs, wings" They
are coming for me-" peace, be still"
Alfred Cookmau's death bed, Richard
CeciPs death bed, Commodore Foote'S
death bed, your fathers death bed, your
mothers death bed, your sisters dealh-
bed, your child's death bed. Ten thou
sand radiant, sOngful death beds of those
who 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 systematically illu.
mined. Those who reject any part of the
Bible never die WELL No beckoning for
angles to come. No listening for the
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 a list so long it seems intermin.
able. Oh, is not that splendid in
fuence this orthodoxy, which makes that
which must otherwise be the most dread
full hour Of life-the last hour-positively
paradisaicalS
Young men, old men, middle-aged
men, take sides in this contest between
orthodoxy and heterodoXy.
Ask for the old paths, walk therein, and ye
shall find rest for your souls.
But you follow this crusade against any
part of the Bible-frst of all, you will
give up Genesis, which is as true as
Matthew: then you will give up all the
historical parts Of the Bible; then after
awhile you will give up the miracles;
then you will find it convenient to give up
the Ten Commandments; and then after
awhile you will wake up in fountainless,
reckless, treeless desert swept of ever
las ting sirocco. II you are laughed at
you can afford to be laughed at for stand
ing by the Bible just as God has given it
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
to take you up stronger than the fantastic
yawl which has painted on the side "Ad-
vanced Thought" and which leaks at the
PROV and leaks at the stern, and has
steel pen for one and glib tongue for
the other ore, and now tips over this way
and then tips over that way, until you do
not know whether the passengers will
land in the breakers Of despair OF on the
sinking sand of iufdelity and atheism.
l am in full sympathy with the adj
vancements OF our time, but this world
will never advance a single inch beyond
this old Bible. God was just as capable
of debating the truth to the prophets and
apostles as He Is capable of debating the
truth to these modern apostles and
prophets. God has not learned any thing
in thousand years. He knew Just as
much when He gave the first dictation as
He does now, giving the last dictation, if
He is giving any dictation at all. SO l
will stick to the old paths. Naturally
skeptic and preferring new things to old,
l never 80 much rs to- day felt the truth
of the entire Bible, especially as l see
into what spectacular imbecility men
rush when they try to chop up the Script
ures with the meat-axe Of their own
preferences; now calling upon philoso-
ply, now calling upon the Church, now
calling on God, now calling on the devil.
prefer the thick, warm robe of the old
religion-old as God-the robe which has
kept many warm amid the cold pilgrim
age of this life and amid the chils of
death. The old robe, rather than the thin,
uncertain gauze offered US by these WISE
acres who believe the Bible in spots.
On July 81, 1914, 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
mightiest men of his day, said at her
| funeral that she was mentally and spirit
ually 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 sublime
| 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 a 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 perisheth and the bread that never
perisheth, who has been father to my
fatherless children and husband to their
widowed mother thus far. And now, re-