Year: 1874

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Beecher's Last Sermon.


1t has been taken for granted that
men were sinful. Are they? 1t has
been said that they were universally sin
full. Are theyY Ithas been said thai
they were depraved totally. Are they
These are false questions, and questions
that are very largely debated. Some
men-and they are esteemed tie most
OrthodOx-hOld that men are polluted
and sinful in every part of their nature
Others speak of the dignity of human
nature. lifelong to the first class.
believe that all mankind is sinful, and
yet can not say that men are totally de-
PRAYED. Speaking in the language Of
emotion and feeling, can say am vile
but, taking the language of philosophy
| can not say it. Shall we say that be-
cause Adam and Eve sinned in the
Garden of Eden for just what theii
senses demanded, that their whole pos
terity was cursed, and that this God OF
wisdom and love has been pouring out
that posterity by millions, and millions
all cursed for the sin of their first pa.
rents with which they had nothing to
do? don't wonder that that scheme
was held in those ages before life dawned,
because something must be framed as a
philosophical explanation, before mems
rights were. That scheme is not to be
covered with obloquy, for it is scheme
of the childhood of man. But in our
day to teach it is to baspheme the name
of the Highest. We have been educated
in the spirit of the Gospel. Our ideas
have been enlarged as to what man
should be, rs to what magistrate
should be. / can worship God that
has, in transcendent excellence, the no
BILE love and care of my father and
mother; but to clothe God in those
traits which have been in history the at
tributes of Nero and Caligula, and to
put in the Divine Government that
which we detest in human Government,
is to lead man down the broad road to
infdelity. 1t teaches men what they
revolt from in the best part of their ma.
lures. 1t makes man leave the church
through his best impulses, and though
called infidel perhaps, he is much bet
ter man in his thought of God than
many "Christian teachers are.


But, on the other hand, if you set
aside this scheme, what have you to pro-
pose in its stead? / don't propose any
thing except simply what see. l think
whatever may be mems theories or phil
osophies, the facts of history state with
louder and clearer emphasis that the hui
man race came on to the globe at an ex-
ceedingly low level. / say that men
were created at the very minimum point
of humanity, as near zero as it is posi-
BILE to be, and that historically their un-
folding has been very gradual. The Di-
vine scheme has been to take men at
their seminal point, at the alphabet, and
to spell out civilization by gradual in
struction until the present day. How
are men brought into life? There will
be before the sun goes down, thousand
children born in Africa that were not
born before you came here this morniug.
They will be pushed into life without
faculty or function, bringing in with
them the accumulated traits of their pa
rents. They first begin to grow up ami
mals-eating, drinking, sleeping-noth-
ing more. As they grow little larger
they are surrounded by circumstances
which bring out selfdefense and the
other lower forms of faculty. Did these
children fall from original righteousness? ?
They were created simply a bundle of
capacities, without an idea, to be devel-
oped by the circumstances that shall
surround them, the men that shall meet
them, the knowledge they should obtain.
When you look upon the world as God
has made it-not according to narrowly
constructed texts, not as the theOlOgians
talk-how do men come into this life?
Do they come in mobiles, heroes, saints?
Are they sprung from the Divine mint,
shining like silver dollars, ready for uni
versal circulation? The whole creation
beholds man born into life at a low
stage, and subjected to development and
education. Now it is on that principle
that say, first, that the term "sinful" "
is often used in so vague and general
a sense that it don't bear to be measured
with any literalness. Ihold men were
born into life without what was called
original righteousness. 1t is defined in
the Catechism as one of the signs of de-
pravity. If you say it is one of the
signs of infcriority, / agree. They are
born not only without original righteous
ness, but without anything. AS man
is developed he feels, just in proportion
as man is honest and just in proper
ton as he has in him the ideal standard
of what character ought to be, condi-
tion ought to be, he accuses himself and
says: az am sinful" He don't feel that
he is guilty of what Adam did, and of
the thingsh could not help. If his IA
ther had the gout and transmitted it to
him, he don't say, 81 am guilty of it."


Shocking Facts About Boston Ladies.


Says the Boston Times "Ladies who
patronize our jewelry, dry goods, and
in way that is anything but pleasing
and profitable to the proprietors. The
latter, anxious to accommodate, often
permit customers to take to their homes
articles which they can not decide to
purchase at the stores. We have heard
of jewelers. recognizing their flashing
diamonds, thus temporarily entrusted to
some fair customer, upon her person on
the evening before it was returned, with
the conclusion regretfully expressed that
they won't suit and the vendors of
costly shawls, elegant sacques, and other
garments, have even recognized their
goods doing duty on special occasions, to
be returned on the nextday by the wear
ers, with the assurance that they were
compelled to state, regretfully, of course,
that they wouldn't. do at all. We had
supposed that New York alone furnished
the parties who perpetrated such jokes
upon the gallant traders; but such is not
the case. Recently nice velvet gar
ment was sent to the house of lady
customer from one of the dry goods firms
of this city, she desiring to give it crit
ical examination. 1t was returned with
good-sized cut in it, which the GUS
toner had attempted to stick together
with some adhesive substance. In max
ing her pattern from the newest Partisan
model she had unluckily nearly spoiled
the garment. Still another lady wished
TO examine an elegant new velveteen
sack, Just from Paris, and it was sent by
a well-known dry goods firm to her resi-
dence. 1t came back to the store with
a dash of egg-yolk upon it, about the
size of the British Isles in an ordinary
map of Europe. Wherever she had worn