The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-10
ABOUT UNIV ERSALISM
AN ABLE SERMON BY REV. ". F.
 DICKERMAN LAST ETENlNG.
Universaiists Are Damned for ThinRinG loo Much of God-Rev. MT. Mills Com plimented--The Universalist Doctrine-A Striking Comparison.

plimented--The UniversaiiSt Doctriho-A
 Striking Comparison.
 Rev. w. F. Dickerman preached an able sermon at the Church of the Mes siah last evening on "Universansm, the sermon being one of the best of the Sunday evening series which he has been delivering for some time. PreVi- ous to the address the choir rendered several selections perhaps as finely us could any choir in the city. MT. DICK erman took for a text I. Corinthians, 15. P, "As in Adam all die, even so Tn Christ shall all be made alive" He said:
 "A Universalst is one who believes ln universal salvation. We must make al- lowance for all the dirt dumped on our ground tby all denominations and the idiosyncrases which we have had to carry along with them. Unlversallsm is not a new fangled notion in'the world. Many of the most prominent Of early Christians believed that all would De saved. Between the times of Constan- tine and Origen of Alexandria there were six schools of theology, of which four believed in the principle or uniVer- sal restora ton, and none of the great councils of the church have framed anything against this hope. In the Church of England Universalist views are not out of place In spite of the fact that part of the litany would lead us to think otherwise.
 "Universalism did not come into any great prominence until during the last century. In Calvanism it was believed
 that a. certain number would be saved, but Universalsm went as far as to be- lieve that all would be saved. Wesley strongly endorsed tract teaching Uni- versalism and undoubtedly had he fol- lowed up the doctrine he would have it in its entirety.
 John Murray was the father of Uni versalism in America, as distinct body of belief. He landed in America in TITO and founded the first Universal ist church in Gloucester, Mass, although
 he previously preached in New Jersey
 He taught that the elect go to heaven and that others would be purified by fire. The Universalist movement did
 not begin as did the Unitarian move ment The former had scholars, means, and influence Universalism came out
 of all the sects, and in the church we find a heterogeneous sect. Baptists and
 Methodists have made the largest con-
 tribution. We find some in the Uniyer- salist church who have come from Epis- copalianism with ritualistic tendencies. Methodists retain in Universalism much
 of their zeal, and Preesbyterians much
 of their rigidity, but the great general idea is the triumph of righteousness and the overthrow of evil. The doctrine of Eternal Hope has found many advo- cates in the Church of England, among
 them being Stanley, Kingsley and Rob- inson. Two books by Canon Farrar, Eternal Hope" and Judgment and
 Mercy" are used as text books by Uni versalists. Lyman Beecher in his His
 tory of Retribution says a large per- centage of the early Christians held to the doctrine of universal restoration,
 and yet he was a believer in the doc Urine of eternal punishment. Farrar
 said that Adventilsts and Universalists,
 when it comes to scriptural defence of their doctrines, can quote ten passages to every one of other denominations. While yet a boy became prejudice ed against Universalism, my parents being Methodists, and did not recover
 from that prejudice until I was thirty yeans of age, and then I found that things in regard to these people were
 not so bad as painted. In the Metho- dist pulpit I myself have denounced them, although I had never read any thing about the denomination much, as
 I denounced Thomas Paine before hav- ing read his works. It has been the
 custom to revile Universalsm from the pulpit and is still the custom in many
 pulpits and especially by blatant evan- | gelists. I wish, however, to except the evangelist now in our midst, who, I be- lieve, has done nothing of the kind. It is said that Universa lism makes it easy for man to do wrong; that it allows
 men to do as they please, take life easy and take no thought of the hereafter. This is not true. If Jniversalism is so bad, why is it that so few convicts are Universalists? Among 800 convicts in the state prison at Jackson, Mich, l l found not single person who believed
 in the final salvation of man. but each one did believe in substitute atonement. Those who expect to suffer the death penalty think that by means of their | final atonement their sins will be remov-
 ed and that they will be launched from the gallows into heaven at once. Uni versalists should not be accused of not believing enough, but, if of anything, of believing too much.
 Let us take the case of man who
 has lived forty-nine years and 364 days
 of a godly life and then Is about to die
 On the 365th day he commits a sin and dies. According to the accepted idea he goes to hell. This is according to the doctrine of the Evangelical Alliance Suppose on the other hand that man has lived forty-nine years of a wicked 1 life, but on the day he is fifty years of i age he reforms and says Lord save me According to the ordinary theory of atonement he is saved. Now we have one man in hell for a momentary sin and another in heaven for a momentary repentance, one who never before had done anything good in his life This Is
 a terribly unjust doctrine. That scheme saves the wrong man. We say that fl
 a man lives forty-nine years and 364 ] days righteously he will get credit fol ! it and that it is unfair to consign him 1 to perdition for one moment of sin and to allow the man who did only one mo- ment of good 10 look down from the