The Bossier banner., 1894-08-02
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
No Opportunity in the Next World
to Correct Mistakes Of This.
Common Sense Declares Such an Expecta-
tion Chimerical-By Our Acts on Earth
Shall We be Judged--No Other
Chance For Us.

Witt Talmage for presentation to his
reading congregation the week is can
other Chance" 1t is based on the text
If the tree fall toward the south or toward
the north in the place where the tree falleth
there it shall be.--Ecclesiastes, XII, g.
There is a lowering hope in the
minds of vast multitude that there
will be an opportunity in the next
world to correct the mistakes of
this; that if we do make complete
wreck of our earthly life, it will be on
a shore up which we may walk to a
palace; that, as defendant may lose
his case in the circuit court, and carry
1t up to the supreme court or court of
chancery and get a reversal of judg-
ment in his behalf, all the costs being
thrown over on the other party, SO, if
we fail in the earthly trial, we
may in the higher jurisdiction of
eternity have the judgement of the
lower court set aside, all the costs re-
mitted, and we may be victorious de-
fendents forever. My object in this
sermon is to show that common sense,
as well as my text, declares that such
an expectation is chimerical. You say
that the impenitent man, having got
into the next world and seeing the dis
aster, will, as result of that disaster,
turn, the pain the cause of his reforma-
tion. But you can find ten thousand
instances in this world of men who
have done wrong and distress overlook
them suddenly. Did the distress heal
them? No; they went right on.
That man was flung of designations.
''You must stop drinking" said the
doctor, ''and quit the fast life you are
leading, or it will destroy you" The
patient suffers paroxysm after par
oxysm, but, under slillfu1 medical
treatment, he begins to sit up, begins
to walk about the room, beg ins to go
to business. And 10! he goes back to
the same grog-shops for his morning
dram and his evening dram, and drains
between. Flat down again Same
doctor! Same physical anguish. Same
medical warning. Now, the illness is
more protracted the liver is more
stubborn, the stomach more irrita BILE,
and the digestive organs are more re-
bellious. But after awhile he is out
again, goes back to the same dram
shops, and goes the same round of
sacrilege against his physical health.
He sees that his downward course is
running his household, that his life is a
perpetual perjury against his marriage
vow, that that broBen-hearted woman
is SO unlike the roseate young wife
whom he married; that her old school
mates do not recognize her; that his
sons are taunted for lifetime by
the fathers drunkenness; that the
daughters are to pass into life under
the scarifcation of disreputab1e an
cestor. He is drinking up their happi-
ness, their prospects for this life, and
perhaps for the life to come. Some
times an apprecia tion of what he is do
ing comes upon him. His nervous sys-
tenn is all a-tangle. From crown of
head to sole of foot he is one aching,
rasping, crucifying, damning torture.
Where is he? In hell on earth. Does it
reform him?
After awhile he has delirium tremens,
with whole jungle of kissing reptiles
let out on his pillow and his screams
horrify the neighbors as he dashes out
of bed, crying: Take these things off
mel" As he sits pale and convalescent,
the doctor says: Now l want to have
a plain talk with you, my dear fellow.
The next attack of this kind you have,
YOU will be beyong all medical skill,
and you will die" He gets better and
goes forth into the same round again.
This time medicine takes no effect.
Consultation of physicians agree in say
ing there is no hope. Death ends the
scene.
That process of inebriation, warning
and dissolution is going on within a
stones throw of you; going on in all
the neighborhoods of Christendom.
Pain does not correct. Suffering does
not reform. What is true in one sense
is true in all senses, and will forever
be SO, and yet men are expecting in the
next world purgatorial regeneration.
Take up the printed reports of the
prisons of the United States, and you
will find that the vast majority of the
incarcerated have been there before,
some of them four, five, six times.
WIN million 1lluSUrdblOHS, all WOFh-
ing the other way in this world, peo-
pie are expecting that distress in the
next state will be salvatory. You can
not imagine any worse torture in any
other world than that which some men
have suffered here, and without any
salutary consequence.
Furthermore, the prospect of re-
formation in the next world is more
improbable than a reformation here.
In this world the life started with in
nocence of infancy. In the case sup
posed, the other life will open with all
the accumulated bad habits of many
years upon him. Surely, it is easier tC
build a strong ship out of new timber
than out of an old hulk that has been
ground up in the breakers. If with
innoe ence to start with in this life a
man does not become godly, what
prospects are there that in the next
world, starting with sin, there
would be seraph evoluted. Surely
shu s, ulptor has more prospect of max
ing fine statue put Of block OF pnrs