The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1910-05-17

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 a mere
handful are fit for heaven and go
there Immediately. They tell us that
the most reprehensible class. heretical
rejectors 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 Protestants, civilized
and heather, are unfit for heaven at
death, and likewise not deserving of
eternal torture. and that thus the great
mass of mankind. nine out Of every
ten, go at death to Purgatory, 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. and
the light of our intelligence, will not
permit us to believe and rejoice in
such view Of the hereafter" 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
cast it out of their creeds. But alas.
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.
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 to 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, I'M
worthy even of a devil We can be-
lieve neither in Purgatory of centu-
ries. nor in eternal torture as a conse-
quence or penalty for Adams disobedi-
ence in eating of the forbidden fruit
hor as 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 hearts cry out for
the living God and the true light upon
his dealings.
Under this awakening intelligence,
thousands of noble men and women
are leaving Gods Book, and leaving
all of the Churches to so after Theos-
ophy, Christian Science, and especially
after Evolution. with its companion
teaching Of Higher Criticism-that the
Bible is thoroughly unreliable. We are
living now In time Of great falling
away from the faith; few intelligent
people any longer believe in the Bible.
Our colleges and universities-and, sad
" say, Jul buCQAOSlIdA SClulAd1 ACo-diC
busy turning out unbelievers-infidels
Nor are these people wicked or immor
al in their inbelief; they are as we'll
meaning as ever, but have lost their
way. They reject the Bible because
they believe it to be the foundation of
the various Inconsistencies In their
creeds; they are stumbling for lack of
knowledge; they cannot believe that
mans herea fter is one of centuries of
suffering, or of eternal suffering.
Seeking the Old Paths.
The Lord, through the Prophet Jere.
miah, tells his people to Inquire fol
the old paths" and this is the appro.
pirate lesson for each Of us. We do,
indeed, need to discard the creeds of
the past, not because they contain
nothing Of truth, but because error
commingles in them to such degree
as to make them perversions Of truth
as a whole We need to take off the
creedal spectacles with which we have
hitherto been studying Gods Word,
and come to the Bible afresh, to hear
its message. Thus coming, many of
us have been surprised as we have
found its purity and consistency and
harmony with itself. We have already
intimated the Bible view of mans
death sentence. and the Bible presen-
tation that Christ died for our redemp-
ton, and the Bible assurance that as
a consequence, in due time" ''the
knowledge of the glory Of God shall
fill the whole earth" We have also
the Bible assurance that not merely
the living will profit by the provision
Of Gods grace, but that "all that are
in their graves shall come forth" to
share in and to be blessed by the IA
vorable conditions which God will by
and by inaugurate.
The Bible declares that the penalty
for sin is being experienced by hu-
manity at the present time-the death
penalty-and that the redemption price
Of Christs death is sufficient for the
sins of the whole world. 1t declares
that on account of this redemption.
ultimately the resurrection of the dead
shall take place-'all that are in their
graves shall hear the voice of the Son
Of Man and come forth" 1t is be-
cause of the Divine intention that
I there shall be resurrection Of the
dead that the Bible everywhere. both
In the Old and New Testaments, speaks
Of those who have died. both good and
bad. as being asleep" and the prom
Use Is that 'They that sleep In the
dust of the earth shall awake"
Nor will they come forth to similar
! conditions of sorrow that now sur