Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-06-23

/ IL starts Win q QpIQ IaIIufe
But, ! says some one, n think we
ought to have q chance in the next life,
because this life is SO short it allows
only small opportunity. We hardly have
time to turn around between cradle and
tomb, the wood Of the one almost touch
ing the marble Of the other" But do
you know what made the ancient deiuge
a necessity? 1t was the longevity Of the
antediluvians. They were worse in the
second century of their lifetime than
in the first hundred years, and still
worse in the third century, and still
worse all the way on to 700, 800 and
900 years, and the earth had to be
washed and scrubbed and soaked and
anchored clear ont of sight for more
than a month before it could be made
fit for decent people to live in.
Longevity never cures impenitency.
All the pictures Of Time represent him
with a scythe to cut, but / never saw
any picture of Time with a case of med
icines to heal. Seneca says that Nero for
the first five years of his public life was
set up for an example of clemency and
kindness, but his path all the way de-
scended until at So A. d. he became a
suicide. If 800 years did not make ante
diluvians any better, but only made them
worse, the ages of eternity could have no
effect except ~prolongation of depravity.
Many Wrongs Do Not Make a Right.
But, " says some one, lin the future
state evil surroundings will be with
drawn and elevated influences substi-
tuted, and hence expurgation and subli-
nation and glorification." But the
righteous, all their sins forgiven, have
passed on into a beatific state, and con-
sequently the unsaved will be left alone.
1t cannot be expected that DR.. Duff,
who exhausted himself in teaching Hin
docs the way to heaven, and DIR. Abeel,
who gave his life in the eva~ngelization
of China, and Adoniram Judson, who
toiled for the redemption of Borneo,
should be sent down by some celestial
missionary society to educate those who
wasted all their earthly existence.
Evangelistic and missionary efforts are
ended. The entire kingdom of the moral
ly bankrupt by themselves, where are
the ~salvatory influences to come from?
Can one speckled and bad apple in a
barrel of diseased apples turn the other
apples good? Can those who are them
selves down help others up? Can those
who have themselves failed in the bust
ness of the soul pay the debts of their
spiritual ~insolvents? Can a million
wrongs make one right?
Poneropolis was q city where King
Philip of Thracia put all the bad people
of his kingdom. If any man had opened
primary school at ~Poneropolis, 1 do not
think the parents from other cities
would have sent their children there.
Instead of amendment in the other
world, all the associations, now that the
good are evolved, will be degenerating
and down. You would not want to send
Il MAJ to a cholera or yellow fever hos
pital for his health, and the great laz-
arctic of the next world, containing the
diseased and plague struck, will be a
poor place for moral recovery. If the
surroundings in this world were crowd
ed of temptation, the surroundings of
the next world, after the righteous have
passed up and on, will be a thousand
per cent more crowded of temptation.
From Freshman to Senior.
The Count of Chatcaubriand made
his little son sleep at night at the top
of a castle turret, where the winds
howled, and where specters were said
to haunt the place, and while the moth
er 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 /
don't think that towers of darkness and
the spectral world swept by sirocco and
euroclydon will ever fit one for the land
of eternal sunshine. l wonder what is
the curriculum of that college of in
ferno where, after proper preparation
by the sins of this life, the candidate
enters, passing OH from freshman class
of deprayity to sophomore of abandon
ment, and from sophomore to Junior,
and from Junior to senior, and day of
graduation comes, and with diploma
signed by satan, the president, and 9TH
er PROFESSIONAL demoniacs, attesting that
the candidate has been long enough I'M
der their drill, he passes up to enter
heaven! Pandemonium a preparatiye
course for heavenly admission! All, my
friends, satan and his cohorts have fitted
%uncounted millions for ruin, but never
fitted one soul for happiness!
Furthermore, it would not be safe for
this world if men had another chance
in the next. II it had been announced
that, however wickedly q man might
act in this world, he could fix it up all
right III the next, society would be ter
ribly demoralized, and the human race
demolished i'll a few years. The fear
that if we are bad and unforgiyon here
it will not be well for us in the next
existence is the chief influence that
keeps civilization from rushing back to
semibarbarism, and semibarbarism from
rushing into midnight savagery, aud
midnight savagery from extinction, for
it is the astringent impression of all ma
lions, Christian and heather, that there
is no future chance for those who have
wasted this.
Multitudes of men who are kept with
III DOuuuS Wbulu SLY. oO ", HOW! Let
me get all out of this life there is in it
Come, gluttony and inebriation and
uncleanness and revenge and all sensu.
~alities, and wait upon mel My life may
be somewhat.shortened in this world by
dissoluteness, but that will only make
heavenly indulgence on a larger scale
the sooner possible. l will oyertake the
saints at last and will enter the heaven
ly temple only a little later than those
who behaved themselves here. Twill on
my way to heaven take a little wider
excursion than those who We're on earth
pious, and l shall go to heaven via ge
hemia and via sheol." Another chance
i'll the next world means free license and
wild abandonment in this.
The Post Mortem.
Suppose you were a party in an i'm
portant 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 imnortarca