The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-06-18

Matter Much Simple. This matter then of heaven and hell is simpler than many suppose We are ex- horted by the Great Apostle not to fulfil the lust of the flesh, but to live by the spirit, because if we live by the flesh We shall die, which reduced it to this sim pie formula, that moving toward a world of spirit. we are lost when we go%into it with only desires for things fleshly, and this destruction is as complete, as was ever set out under the figure of the burn ing valley of Gehenna, to which Jesus pointed and admonished men to avoid that where the worm dieth not and where the fires are not quenehed.
 Life and death after all are matters of correspondence. For instance blind man fin this world is dead to the shining of the sun, In so far as his optics fail to | register the effect to the sun shining. The kindness of God is so revealed in the scriptures as to make us know that the world in which he dwelled is kindly world. Suppose, therefore, a man on the earth who never had a kindly instinct. and never manifested the milk of human kindness to any creature, should be ush- cred into the presence of the Kind God, he would be as completely separate from the heavenly Father as though he had been banished through all the space of
 ac universe. It is not difficult for us
 see that if all our years are spent in minstering to the wants of the flesh that we thereby build disposition having such tastes as should be utterly inca pablo of being gratihed in a world of spirit This l apprehend to be the teach ings of Jesus. When we separate that teaching from the figures of speech in which He necessarily had to speak to his own generation, we change the figure, but we keep his principle, and the worst hell that l can conceive. is soul with capacity made large by long years of practice, brought Into condition where it is no longer possible for desire to be satisfied. If this is not true, then the wicked man would be as happy in the hereafter as the good man; for we lind it here that when life is young and the wicked heart can find it's satisfaction in gratifying it's desires. the wicked flourish like the green bay tree and they often appear happier than the righteous, who sometimes go like the bull rush with the head hung down. but as life advances, and capacity increases, and the ability to gratify desire ceases, the wicked be- come miserable here; in fact, this makes the misery of a bad man in the world | do not confound this with that horror which stings the conscience when a man awakes to his horrible fate, and seeks to flee from it; but the bad mans misery is in having a capacity for bad things. and not having the ability to gratify.
 To you young men here this morning. this may well give pou pause, that when Dives asked for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue, 1t meant no more than a man cut off from all means of sat isfyng his desires.
 Fixed az We Are to Be. ts. tp gal mediaeval conception of Dante to con vince us of the horrors of evil doing, we had better understand the laws that gov em our natures and that fix Us to the thing We are to be. It Is a something about which men have talked much in these latter years. They have been given to us in the school room, and we read much about them in books. but we are, slow to apply them to life in such way as to impress US that in our thinking and acting from day to day we are handling those shaping influences that determine, what we are to be hereafter. The great question with men now and always has been, What am I and whither am I going?' We exercise a good deal of com mon sense in moving from one point to another in our earthly habitat. 1t makes a difference whether we are going to Southern Europe or Central Africa. Tho very clothing that we buy and the food
 
 recognize the difference. All of us are destined to a far-away country and the habits of soul and of mind just as sure ly determine our comfort or discomfort as does the clothing and food stuff for the body determine the comfort for the African traveller. If you live altogether for the things of this world and form tastes alone for them. when this shall have passed and the things thereof, you will keep your disposition and habits while all means of ministerlng to your wants will have gone. This is what old John Mill ton had Tn mind when he put these words into the mouth of the devil:
 Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
 Which way I fly Is Hell; myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep a lower deep, Still threatening to devour me, opens wide,
 To which the Hell I suffer seems Heaven"
 Similar to Flowers.
 When a man starts hfe. in the full