The free press., 1894-07-05

plague struck, will be poor place for mora
recovery. ii the surroundings in this world
were crowded OF temptation, the surround
ings OF the next world, after the righteou.
have passed up and on, will be a thousand
per cent more crowded of temptation.
The Count OF Chateaubriand made his lit
tie son sleep at night at the top of n castle
turret. where the winds howled. and where
specters were said to haunt the place, and
while the mother and sisters almost died
with fright the son tells us that the process
gave him nerves that could not tremble and
a courage that never faltered. But l don'i
think that towers of darkness and the spec
tral world swept by srocco and euroclydon
will ever fit ono for the land OF eternal sun
shine. / wonder what is the curriculum OF
that college OF inferno, where, after proper
preparation by the sins Of this life, the can
didate enters, passing on from freshman
class of depravity to sophomore of abandon
ment and from sophomore to junior, and
! from junior to senior, and day of gradua-
| ton comes, and with diploma signed by
| satan, thu president, and other professorial
demoniacs. attesting that the candidate has
| been long enough under their drill, he
| passes up TO enter heaven Pdndemonium
| n prPparative course for heavenly admis-
sion !! Ah. my friends, satan and his coherts
| have fitted uncounted millions for ruin, but
never titte one soul for happiness
Furthermore, it would not be safe for this
| world if men had another chance in the
next. If it had been announced that, how
ever wickedly man might act in this world
he could fix 1t up all right In the next,
society would be terribly demoralized. and
the human race demolished in few years.
The fear that if we are bad and unforgiven
here it will not be we'll for us in the next ex-
istence is the chief influence that keeps civil
izaton from rushing back to semiharbar-
ism, and semibarbarism from rushing into
mighty savagery, and midnight savagery
from extinction. for it is the astringent i'm
preston OF all nations, Christian and
heather, that there is no future chance for
those who have wasted this.
Multitudes of men who are kept within
bounds would say go to, nowl Let me
get all out of this life there is in it. Come,
gluttony and inebriation and uncleanness
and revenge and all sensualities, and walt
upon me My life may be somewhat short
ened in this world by dissoluteness, but that
will only make heavenly Indulgence on q
larger scale the sooner possible. will over
take the saints at last and will enter the
heavenly temple only a little later than
those who behaved themselves here. will
on my way to heaven take a little wider ex-
cursion than those who were on earth pious,
and | shall go to heaven via gehenna and
via sheol." Another chance in the next
world means free license and wild abandon
ment in this.
Suppose you were party In an important
case at law, and you knew from consultation
with judges and attorneys that 1t would be
tried twice. and the first trial would be Of
little importance, but that the second would
decide everything, for which trial would yoc
make the most preparation, for which retain
the ablest attorneys, for which be most anx
ious about the attendance of witnesses? You
would put all the stress upon the second
trial, all the anxiety, all the expenditure,
saying, "The first is nothing, the last Is
everything" Give the race an assurance of
a second and more important trial in the
subsequent life, and all the preparation for
eternity would be "post morten," post fu-
neral post sepulchraI. and the world with
one jerk be pitched off into impiety and god
lessness.
Furthermore let me ask why chance
should be given in the next world If we have
refused innumerabie chances In this? Sup
pose you give a banquet, and you invite a
vast number of friends. but one man de-
clines to come or treats your invitation with
Indifference. You in tho course of twenty
years give twenty banquets, and the same
man is invited TO them all and treats them all
in the same obnoxious way. After while
you remove to another house. larger and bet
ter, and you again invite your friends, but
send no invitation to the man who declined
or neglected the other invitations.
Are yo1 to blame2 Has he right
to expect to be invited after all
the indignties he has done you? God In
this world has invited us all to the banquet
of His grace He invited us by His prov-
dence and His spirit 1865 days of every year
since we knew our right hand from our left.
If we declined 1t every time or treated the
invitation with indifference ana gave twenty
or forty or fifty years Of indignity on our
part toward .he banqueter, and ut last He
spreads the banquet in a more luxurious and
kinSly place, amid the heavenly gardens,
have we II right to expect Him to invite us
| again, and have we a right 20 blame Him If
He does not invite us?
Ii twelve gates OF salvation stood open
twenty years or fifty years for our admis-
sion, and ut the end of that time they are
closed, can we complain of 1t and say
''rhese gates ought to be open again. Give
us another chance?" If the steamer is to sail
for Hamburg, and we want to get to Ger
many by that line, and we read in every
evening and every morning newspaper that
| it will sail on q certain day, for two weeks
we have that advertisement before our eyes,
and then we go down to the docks fifteen
minutes after 1t has showed of into the
stream and say Come back Give me
another chance 1t is not fair to treat me
in this way Swing up to the dock again
and throw out planks and let me come on
boarIr' Such behavior would invite arrest
| as a mailman.
And if, after the gospel ship has lain at
anchor before our eyes for years and years.
and all the benign voices of earth and
| heaven have urged us to get on board, as
she might sail away at any moment, and
after awhile she sails without us, is it
common sense to expect her to come back?
You might as well go out on the highlands
at Navesnk and call to the Majestic after
she has been three days out and expect her