Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-05-12
THE QUESTION OF PENALTY.
Rev. G. p. Massey Discusses Sowing and
Reaping in the Moral Realm.

Rev. G. p. Massey Discusses Sowing and
Reaping in the Moral Realm.
Before the Unitarian Society yesterday
Rev. G. p. Massey spoke from Galatians
vi, and s: 'Be not deceived God is not
Knocked, for whatsoever man soweth that
shall he also reap for he that soweth to his
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but
he that soweth to the spirit shall of the
spirit reap life everlasting" In the course
of his remarks Mr.. Massey said What we
want to keep constantly IN view is the fact
of the eternal consequences attending upon
all transgression. Our minds are confused
because SO much of sin receives immediate
punishment, and We do not study enough
its effects upon the character, upon the
person. The idea has recently been pro-
mulgated anew that intemperance should
be regarded as a crime, and that it should
be punished under penal laws. 1t is a
crime against society, and society can pro-
coed to deal with il in this outward phase
but the crime IS primarily and particularly
against ones self, inasmuch as because
of il not only the body but the spirit has
become debauched and benumbed, and has
stamped upon it character which it must
bear forever. In contrast with the terrible
images conIured up by such an exposition
OF moral truth, how devoid of any elements
| to seriously alright is the old idea of an
inquisition upon the event of death, and an
| immediate Judgment by which the condi-
ton OF soul is TO be eternally determined.
Who believes now in any arbitrary distri-
button of reward and penalty, whereby
ones condition IS at once and irrevocably
fixed? Even in Hydrologic ages the great.
est thinkers portrayed the results Of evil as
| inEering in character, in personality. Dante
| so pictured them, and his hell is the legiti-
mate consequence in every case of the re-
| spective transgression. And so when we
come 20 put over against these artificial
! ideas, against these pictures of an unreal
Judgment the thought that everything
/ tends to bear fruit after its kind, all
seeds of good and all of evil and
| that the harvest is to be gathered not
once for all, al what we have been pleased
| to term the threshold of eternity, but
throughout eternity in perpetual ripen-
ing sometimes wonder that the earlier
/ thought of the world did not reject the pic
| lures borrowed from the things of sense,
| with which the church has striven to
alarm the transgressor, when the conse-
| quences of every moral delinquency could
| be portrayed to the Imagination with so
much more effective coloriDgs. What we
| want to do is to try to see eternal things in
a different light. We sin against the flesh
or the integrity of the universe, and if no
consequences Immediately ensue we think
perhaps we have gone entirely free. But
If the flesh has suffered nothing the spirit
has not escaped. And it is this reaping,
which is NOT feshly reaping, as the term
is generally interpreted, that more particu-
larly concerns US here. Man is under
iieshiy laws. laws which pertain to this
world, but most of us BIZ little prudence,
can escape The consequences of their in