The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1892-03-17
THE COAL COMBINE.
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believed on the only begotten son OF
God?" Yes, this is part OF paragraph. |
The next sentence Is usually omitted,
which Is the sentence that qualities and
explains this belief. 'Is condemned
already" says tho Word. "ADd this Is
he condemnation, that hight Is come
fato the world, and men loved darkness
Gather than light, because their deeds
were evil" That Is to say, the only
condemnation which Jesus Christ lays
acainst the race is that man, knowing
the truth and the right, chooses the
wrong. chooses the evil, chooses the
darkness, because his deeds are evil.
Jesus taught distinctly and clearly the
great truth, that upon the viii Of man
depends the question Of his salvation or
condemnation. Eye will not come unto
me that ye may have life" says the
Christ. He also declared that he will
burn up the chat with unquenchable
fire. Hero we find the real doctrine Of
future punishment as taught by Christ
These two sentences from his lips give
Us the key to every statement he makes
upon the subject that we have on
record.
Judged thus from the lips Of Jesus,
hell Is the gulf of irredeemable evil, the
furnace Of the eternities in which the
worthless chaf or waste Of creation Is
consumed. 1t Is therefore not dogma
Of revealed religion. 1t is a scientific
fact which confronts revealed religion,
the saddest, sternest fact of a universe
measured by the methods of inductive
science and philosophy.
CoNvERGIN0 LINES.
Man has o dual nature. Man has
bound up within himself the possibi1i-
ties of two destinies. He may rise or
fall He may return to the brute or
climb up TO God. he can descend, under
the law Of reverxion to type, crawl upon
the earth; or he can rise by the higher
law of his nature through that new ele-
ment introduced which is of the very
breath and heart of God. To man is
giver tho power to choose which Of these
destindes shall be his own. Upon his
will hinges the question Of right or
wrong, good or evil, darkness or light,
hell or heaven; and the choice Of evil is
q necessary postulate Of his very nature.
doctrine of the survival of the fittest. 1t
Is the law Of God. 1t is the law Of
nature. The fttest survives. The I'M
fttest is cast as rubbish on the waste
heap Of creation.
We see this law illustrated in the an
imal world even today. Birds of prey
we hate. Strong as they are in brutal
force, yet through this very brutality
the index finger Of nature points forward
TO their extinction. The hawk, the
eagle, with their mighty talons, can tear
pieces. And yet the ferceness Of this
carnivorous instinct destroys the brood |
ing tenderness Of motherhood. The
greatest bird Of prey lays only two eggs
in year. The most prolific bird Of
prey only six. Nature thus points for
ward TO q time when the unfit, how
ever strong, shall certainly succumb,
when the lion and the lamb shall lie
down together, when the meek shall in |
herit the earth.
The lines of hell run into and are a |
part Of this earth. The difficulty about
hell Is that it is already here. To talk
abolishing the sternest facts of everyday
life about rs now. A brutal crime was
committed in Arkansas the other day |
and the mob took the criminal and burned |
him alive-in the Nineteenth century! |
A few days ago hea-tless villain seized |
o child by the heels, dipped his head into |
a burning caldron of vitriol and held it
there until the child's eyes were burned |
out. He'll is an awful fact. 1t is here |
now-today. A man asked me if l be-
loved in q personal devil. I certainly |
do; have seen him. He has thousands
of branch establishments here in New
York. There is scarcely block in the
city in which he has not personal rep
resentative in business. know people
who are in hell now-lost to hope, lost to
faith, lost to honor, lost to love.
WORSE THAN DEATH.
Stand over the burning ruins of the |
Hotel Royal for q moment, and read les
sons Of law violated and sentence ex-
ecuted. A worthless city government
has allowed death trap without means
OF escape to be set every day and every
night for the destruction of hundreds Of |
victims. A crash comes and this sin is
read In the fash of this horrible holo-
caust. and it is heard in the shrek of
the dying and the groan of the wounded.
We read 1t written in letters of blood on
tho dark fagstones on which the W es
OF the.victims were dashed out. We see
wandering over those smoldering ashes |
broken hearted nen who rejoiced more
in the wreck and ruin of the charred
bodies CT those they had once loved than |
they could rejoice in life. From this
fiery hell there flashed forth its han
dreds of stories of brutality. of crime,
Of sin, of Indebtedness, of human per-
fdy, of broken honor, of blasted VOWS,
dishonored homes and wrecked lives.
The realities of hell are inherent and |
inevitable, not judicial or forensic. 1.-THE
wages Of sin is death" "Sin, when it is
full grown, bringeth forth death" It is
natural process. 1t is an inevitable
process. A judicial hell is the creation
Of the brain Of scholastic tradition. 1t is
unscientific, unphilosophic, unbiblical,
anchristian. 1t has no foundation either
in the facts of nature or the revelation
OF God in his word. 1.-THE soul that sin
meth, it shall die" says God. And so
ssys nature, Sc echoes life, Death is an
inevitable consequence Of sin. Death
Turks in sin itself-ind sin where you
viii, in the world of commerce, in the
world Of society or in the world of the
human heart.
MANS WORK, NOT GODS.
Violate the laws of trade, trade dies.
Violate the laws of business, business is
killed. A farmer the other day ut
Athens, Ala, took his cotton into town
to sell. Tbs price offered was lower
than the cost of production. Over.
whelmed with despair, he refused to
sell, drove his wagon out on to the mid
die Of the bridge and dumped into the
river the product of his years toll.
When farmers in the south dump into
the sea the hope of their years toll;
when farmers in Kansas burn their
grain, the day of judgment is come for
the system of commerce On which sucb |