Arizona republican., 1909-02-24
DR. DIXON DISCUSSES
 HEAVEN ON EARTH
Continued from page 4)

memory, reason, imagination and con- science. I know that such a hell eI- ists, for-I have been there. I have seen men and women on this earth burning continually, yet unconsumed; forever wasting. yet enduring still; dy- ing perpetually, yet never dead"
 It is but another way of expressing what the Bible means by the bottom less pit'-forever falling without striking bottom; forever sinking in the moral scale. forever growing worse. and yet not becoming so bad that you cannot grow worse still-everlasting degeneration! The soul, with infinite capacity for good or evil, chooses the evil and develops downward through eternity. If a man chooses sin rather than righteousness, infinite love, wis dom and power cannot keep hell out of him or him out of hell.
 Ought there to be a heaven? It is not difficult to convince men that there is a heaven, though there is more proof that there is a hell. Sin is more in evidence than righteousness. Read the daily papers, and most of the big headlines are proof that there is hell on earth. And yet some people for getting that heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people, would compel God to do the impossible-make them happy in a place for which they are not prepared. They refuse life, and then demand that they shall enjoy life. They refuse to let heaven come into them, and demand that God shall take them into heaven. Their demand real ly is that God shall make no differ ence between light and darkness, dis ease and health, death ard life, anar- chy and law, the cemetery and the home, the garbage heap and the gar den.
 The good ought to be separated from the bad. Every home is built on that idea. It is a sacred place of purity and peace, separated from the vice and turmoil of the outside world. To open the home to the inflow of evil is to destroy it. Jesus calls heaven My Fathers house." Now, will our Father destroy this home by opening it to the evil of the universe? Faithfulness ought to be rewarded. It is not right to reward gifts, but the improvement of gifts; not capacity. but the use and development of capacity. The para ble of the talents teaches that there is no reward for having talents, but only for increasing them. Salvation is altogether of grace, while reward is altogether of works. God gives us life through Christ, but we must gain the crown of life through faithfulness. There ought to be degrees of reward. There are no degrees of salvation. Every man is saved completely or not at all. Life makes the difference be- tween a corpse and a man, though in men there are degrees of life. Every cup will be full, but not of the same size.
 The biblical doctrine of heaven and hell has great ethical value. The fact that sin brings punishment is a deter rent to coarse and selfish natures. Jesus uses the doctrine of hell as motive to repentance. This motive is, to large extent, absent from our pull pits. If there were more preaching of hell in the pupit, there would be less of hell in the community The hope of heaven makes men better. Paul said: T reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us" There is a heaven in the hope of heaven.
 It is a stupendous fact that God leaves us to choose between heaven and hell. T set before you this day the way of life and the way of death" In choosing sin we choose hell. In choosing righteousness we choose heaven. Sin needs no helper in mak- ing hell; for sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" Jesus Christ is the Savior from sin to righteousness, and when we accept Him, there comes into us a life that gravitates upward