Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-08-17

like God forever and forever" oh, tho
glorious certitudes Of orthodoxy!
Behold the splendors of orthodoxy in
its announcement Of two destinies.
Palace and penitentiary. Palace with
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 Windsor castles
and the Winter gardens aud the impe-
rial abodes of oil the earth were heaved
up into one architectural glory. At the
other end of the universe 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 sin and eternal degradation?
use unless you have the last Brooklyn
and New York would be better places to
live in with Raymond street Jail and the
Iombs and Sing Sing, and all the small
Rox hospitals emptied on, them than
Heaven would be if there were no hell,
Palace and penitentiary. If I see man
with full bowl of sin, and he thirsts
for it, 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 it's sweetness
down his throat, shall we snatch away
the bowl, and jerk the man up to the
gate of Heaven, and push him in if he
does not want to go and sit down and
sing psalms forever? No. God mas
made you and me so completely free
that We need not go to Heaven unless we
prefer it. Not more free to soar than
free to sink.
Nearly all the heterodox people know
believe all are coming out at the same
destiny; without regard to faith or char
acter we ale all coming out at the shin
ing gate. There they are, all in glory
together. Thomas Paine and George
Whitefeld, Jazebel and Mary Lyon,
Nero and Charles Wesley, Charles Quit
eau and James A. Garfield, John Wilkes
Booth and Abraham Line ln-all in glory
together! All the innocent men. women,
and children who were massacred, side
by side with their murderers. If we are
all coming out at the same destiny, with
out regard to character, then it is true. I
turn away from such debauched
Heaven. Against that caldron of piety
and blasphemy, philanthropy and assas-
sination, self sacrifice and beastliness,
place the two destinies of the Bible
forever aud forever and forever apart.
Behold also the splendors Of the
Christien orthodox deathbeds.
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
and challenge you to show me trt
umphant death of q man who rejectd ID
the Scriptures, or any part of them.
Here make great wide avenue. On
the one I put the deathbeds of those wi 10
believed in an entire Bible. On the
other side of that avenue 1 put the death
beds of those who rejected part of tile
Bible. Now, take my arm and let Us
pass through this dividing avenue.
Look Off upon the right side. Here are
the deathbeds on the right side Of this
avenue. .Victorry through :. our Lord
Jesus Christi hr Free grace!" Glory!
gates washed in the blood of the lamb
ay!" wings, wings!" "They are com
ing for met" Peace, be still" Alfred
Cookman's deathbed, Richard Cecils
deathbed. Commodore Foote'S deathbed.
Your fathers deathbed, your mothers
deathbed, your sisters deathbed, your
childs deathbed. Ten thousand radi-
ant, songful deathbeds of those who be-
lieved 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 triumph. No face supernatur-
ally illumined. Those who reject any
reckoning for angels to come. No lis
tening 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 be-
lieve in an entire Bible and gone out of
the world in triumph is q list so long it
seems interminable. Oh, is not that a
splendid influence, this orthodoxy which
makes that which must otherwise be
the most dreadful hour of life-the
last hour positively paradisiacal?
Young men, old men, middle-aged
men, take sides in this contest between
orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Ask fol
the old paths, walk therein, and We shall
find rest for your souls" But you fol-
low this crusade against any part of the
Bible-frst Of allyou will give up Gene
sis, which is as true as Matthew; then
you will give up all the historical parts
of the Bible; then after while you will
give up the miracles; then you will find
it convenient to give up the Ten Com
= man dments; and then after while you
will wake up in fountainless. reckless,
,, treeless desert swept Of everlasting
( sirocco. If you are laughed at you car
+, afford to be laughed at for standing by
the Bible just as God has given it to you
and miraculously preserved it.
r Donot jump overheard from the stanct
p old Great Eastern of old-fashioned
/ orthodoxy until there is something ready
= to take you up stronger than the fan
tastic yawl which has painted on the
side Advanced Thought" and which
y leaks at the prov and leaks at the stern
> and has q steel pen for one oar and c
r glib tongue for the other oar. and now
: tips over this way and then tips ovel
; that way, until you do not know whether
the passengers will land in the breakers
, of despair or on the sinking sand of in
fidelity and atheism.
| am in full sympathy, with the adj,
L