Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1894-06-21

IL
plague struck, will be poor place for mora
recovery. III the surroun lngs in This worid
were crowded OF temptation, the surround
ines OF the next world, after the righteous
nave passed up and on. will be thousand
pei cent. more crowded of temptation,
me Count OF Chateaubriand made his lit
tie son sleep at night Mt the ton OF n castle
turret. where the winds howled. and where
specters were said to haunt the place. and
| wnile the mother and sisters almost died
with fright the son tells MS that the process
gave him nerves that could not tremble and
courage that never faltered. But don't
thlnk that towers OF darkness and the spec-
'ra, world swept by sirocco and eurocydon
| VIII ever fit one for the land of eternal sun-
shine. | wonder what is the curricnlnn, If
that college OF inferno, where. after proper
preparation by the sins of this life, the can
uiuate enters. passing on from freshman
CLASS OF depravity to sophomore of abandon
| nent, and from sophomore to Junior. and
rom luNor to senior. and day OF gradua-
uoh comes, and with diploma signed by
satan, the president. and other PROFESSIONAL
demonlacs, attestng that the candidate has
oeeh long enough under their drill. he
passes up to enter heaven Pandemonium
a preparative course for heavenly admis-
sion An, my friends, satan and his cohorts
nave lifted uncounted millions for ruin. but
never tttet one soul for happiness
furthermore 1t would not be safe for this
world II men had another chance in the
next. Ii 1t 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 a few years.
Inc fear that II we are bad and unforgiven
here 1t will not be we'll for us in the next ex-
istence is the chief influence that keeps civil
izatlon from rushing back to semibarbar-
md J.
mighty savagery, and midnight savagery
from extinction. for it is the astringent i'm
preston of all nations, Christian and
heathen. that there is no future chance for
those who have wasted this.
Multltudes of men who are kept within
bounds would say go to, now! Let me
get all out of this life there is in it. Come.
gluttony and inebriation and uncleanness
and revenge and all sensualties. and wait
upon me! My life may be somewhat short
ened In this world by dissoluteness, but that
VIII only make heavenly Indulgence on a
larger scale the sooner possible. l 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 little wider ex-
cursion than those who were on earth pious.
and shall got 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 a party in an important
case at law, and you knew from consultation
with judges and attorneys that it would be
tried twice, and the first trial would be of
little importance but that the second would
decide everything, for which trial would YOU
make the most preparation, for which retain
the ablest attorneys, for which be most anx-
lous about the attendance of witnesses? You
would put all the stress upon the second
trial. all the anxiety, all the expenditure,
saying, 1.-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 mortem," post fu-
neral, post sepulchral, 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 banquet, and you invite a
vast number of friends. but one man de-
clines to come or treats your invitation with
indifference. You in the course of twenty
years give twenty banquets, and the same
man is invited 10 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 you to blame? Has he right
the indignities he has done You? God in
this world has invited us all to the banquet
OF His grace. He invited us by His proyi-
dence and His spirit 1856 days of every year
since We knew our right hand from our left.
If we declined it every time or treated the
invitation with Indifference aud gave twenty
or forty or fifty years of indignity on our
M RI ffaxr a.d h,,
spreads the banquet in a more luxurious and
kingly place, amid the heavenly gardens,
have we right to expect Him to invite us
again, and have we right to blame Him If
He does not invite us?
1t twelve gates OF salvation stood open
twenty years or fifty years for our admis-
sion, and at the end of that time they are
closed, can we complain of it and say
These gates ought to be open again. Give
us another chance?" fthe 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
1t will sail on certain day, for two weeks
we have that advertisement before our eyes,
and then we go down to the docks fifteen
minutes after it has showed off 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
board +" Such behavior would invite arrest
as a mailman.
And it, 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 Navesink and call to the Majestic after
she has been three days out and expect her
to return as TO call back an opportunity for
heaven when it once has sped away. All
heaven offered us as gratuity. and for a
lifetime we refuse to take it, and then
rush on the bosses of Jehovah's bucbler de-
handing another chance. There ought to
be, there can be, there will be. no such
thing as posthumous opportunity. Thus
our common sense agrees with my text, 'Il
the tree fall toward the south or toward the
north, in the place where the tree falleth
there 1t shall be-"
You see this idea lifts this world up from
an unimportant way station to platform of
stupendous issues and makes all eternity
whirl around this hour. But one trial for
which all the preparation must be made in
this world or never made at all. That piles
up all the emphases and all the climaxes and
all the destinies into life here. No other
chance! oh, how that augments the value
and Importance of this chance
Alexander with his army used to surround
city and then would lift great light In