Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-01-08
OUTSIDE poINT-0F VIEW

Recently this scribe was away from
nome over Sunday. Naturally he went
TO church. With his usual freedom from
any choice of the routes to heaven, for
an lead there, according to the speak
ers in the different puipits, he asked the
hotel clerk where was the nearest
church. and arrived on time. What fol-
lows is in substance the sermon listened
TO. 1t may storm next Sunday and any
reader of this column can stay at home,
read this and also get in a little back
talk, something, by The way, If intro
duced as a part of the regular services
in all churches, say in the evening
meeting. once Il month, would perhaps
increase the size of the audiences. TO
make ii regular feature it should be
we'll advertised to occur on the first
Sunday evening Of each month. But to
the sermon. The subject was on The
Limitations of Gods Power" the text
was from-well, the writer forgets.
One of the limitations of God was His
inability to save men and women
against their wills. That sounded
natural. You can lead horse to water,
but you can't make him drink. But it's
only a few Sundays ago this same
writer heard a sermon on the omnipo-
tence of God, this last preacher almost
conveying the idea that God could make
two and two five. Now it so happens
the writer believes in this all powerful
attribute of God, and when he learned
from preacher that God could not
save men without they had a hand in
the saving it seemed as tho we could
no longer claim God was omnipotent,
omnipresent, and omniscient. That
preachers doctrine hurt the writer's
creed.
Again: The saloon. the preacher said,
limited Gods power. That was a
"sockdologer' Shake, brother! II
there is anything on this earth that
keeps God busy to combat the evil eff
fects of it. it is the saloon. But the carp
ing critic sitting there in the pew hap
pened to think the saloon would not
be in existence unless God allowed it.
He happened to remember that the Gre
ator made mems minds, SO that they
know how to manufacture all kinds of
drink poisons. Also that He must have
known that men would fix up attract
i've places to deal out the seductive liq-
uors and that other men would fill
drunkards' graves as the result. Hold
on! Perhaps it's the devil that puts
this knowledge into mems minds. This
would be comforting doctrine, but
again the stern doctrine confronts us.
If the devil is responsible, God must al
low the devil to get in his work. God Is
more powerful than the devil. Then
the preacher said, mo man can be a
consistent church member and use his
influence in favor of the legalized sa-
loom" This was a stem winder," for
it's matter of record that some of his
deacons and church members signed the
mulct petition that makes the legal sa-
loon possible in the preachers town.
It's little tough on the brother preach
er in Tt who advised his church
members to sign such petition "as a
choice of evils" This also seems re-
Election on the Almighty, who of course
on the day of creation knew that in 1908
there would be mulct saloons in Iowa,
knew that an editor OF the T.-R. would
advocate such law and that an Iowa
legislature would pass such law. Fur
thermore, God allows it today. (Be-
tween you and l, reader, just why the
Almighty allows such damnable condi-
tons and results has never been salts
factorily explained to the writero
And then said the good man, Il am
not prepared to say that card playing
and dancing are inconsistent with good
church membership, but this do think,
that the use of tobacco is much worse
And that struck home. On the way to