The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1910-05-13
PASTOR RUSSELL
IN LONDON
"HEREAFTE F"
There Shall Be No More Death. Neither
Sorrow Nor Crying. Neither Shall There Be
Any More Pam For the Former Things
Are Passed Away (Revelaiion xxi. d.

enough: it shows forth Divine Justice
ftertwined with Divine Mercy and
Love. We admit our present I'M
worthiness of life eternal and feel
grateful for proposed assistance
through Christ. but our great Adver-
sary. operating through ignorance. and
superstition and fear. seized the OPP
portunity TO deceive us and misrepre-
sent our Creator by bringing in what
ST. Paul designated. doctrines of
demons q Timothy iv, u. These have
been promulgated. not merely in heath
en- lands, but amongst the civilized.
These false doctrines have tended to
ALLEVIATE the hearts and minds Of hui
mainly from God and his revelation;
they have put barrier between God
and his creatures
These doctrines of demons" are pre-
sented from various standpoints, but
they are alike in one respect; namely,
! they all teach that God deceived our
first parents when he told them that
the wages of sin is death" These
doctrines of demons assert the con-
trary. that man cannot die. but must
live somewhere to all eternity. Thus
on the basis of mans fears. this doc
trine that God thrust Immortality upon
his creatures, the demons built up for
us a theory so horrible as to be nau-
seating and terrifying to every sane
and healthy mind. These doctrines
of demons" have been promulgated far
and near. and with various colorings,
but in essence they are all the same.
They have come down from the dark
ages" represented in all our creeds,
Catholic and Protestant.
Our Catholic friends have developed
this thought to nicely. They tell us
; that Of those who die. only mere
handful are fit for heaven and so
there Immediately. They tell us that
the most reprehensible class. heretical
reiectOrs of Divine Truth. will be sent
to hell of eternal torture where they
will never die They assure us. how
ever. that the number who will re-
ceive this extreme punishment is small
In comparison with the race as a
whole. They tell us that the majority.
Catholics and Professionals, civilized
and heather, are unfit for heaven ut
death. and likewise not deserving of
eternal torture. and that thus the great
mass Of mankind. nine out OF every
I ten. go at death TO Purga tory. there to
suffer for centuries or for thousands
of years in expiatiOn of sins. and for
publication of their souls. that they
may be eventually fit for Heaven and
its blessings. Our hearts rebel at such
a view of the hereafter" While Civ
ing our Catholic friends, and our own
forefathers who were Catholics. credit
for being as sincere as ourselves. we
conclude that the light of our day. ard
the light of our Intelligence. will not
permit us to believe and rejoice in
such a view of the ''hereaf ter' as this
We say to ourselves. Surely the Great
God has something nobler than this in
reservation for his creatures
Protestant Views Worse.
/ What shall we say of the Here
after from the standpoint of our
Protestant creeds? How do these COM
pare with the Catholic views fore
gOing-hOw much worse? When our
fOrefathers thought they had found
something erroneous in the teachings
Of Papacy, when they concluded that
Purgatory was not to be found in the
Bible, they heroically determined TO
Of MT oil
( When discarding it. they did not re-
/ aliZe that they were making a bad
matter worse. They held on to the
! doctrine of demons that God had
created man so that he could not die,
and could not be destroyed, and SO
they proceeded TO interpret matters
! along that line Realizing the Scrip
turalness Of the proposition that only
! the sanity were. fit for heaven, and re-
] jecting the theory of Purgatory. they
/ logically consigned all except the saint
| ly thereafter tc eternal torture. Alas,
/ How Inconsistent it is: how strange
! that we ever thought Divine Fore
/ knowledge. Wisdom. Justice, Mercy,
Love and Power should have created
/ man to the number of thousands of
| millions. with the fOreknowledge and
/ fore-intention and desire that they
should suffer an eternity OF torture.
Parting of the Ways.
! Thus, my dear hearers. you with my
/ self and others of the intelligent peo-
! pie of the world. find ourselves today
/ in most trying position. Our hearts
have repudiated the doctrine of eter-
nal torture as being un-Christ-like. un-
worthy even of IL devil We can be-
/ lieve neither i'm IL FurgatOry of centu-
! ries nor i'm eternal torture as Il cOnSe-
quence or penalty for Adams disobedi-
encc in eating Of the forbidden fruit.
nor as a. penalty upon his children for
not living perfect lives when they
were born in sin and shapen in iniQui-
ty' and prone to sin as the sparks to
fly upward" Our he,wts cry out for
the living God and the true light upon
his DEALINGS
/ Under this awakening intelligence,
are leaving Gods Book. and leaving
all of the Churches to 20 after Theos-
iophy. Christian Science. aud especially
after Evolution. with its companion
teaching of Higher Criticism-that the
Bible is thoroughly unreliable. We are
living nowain time of great falling
away from the filth: few intelligent
people any longer believe i'm the Bible
Our colleges and universities-an and, sad