Year: 1877

The virtuous Mr.. Beecher seems
to be gradually shaking off the old
fashioned doctrine of the Oongre
gational body of which he is
member and striking out in his ac-
customed sensational way. All doc
trine hangs lightly upon his shoul-
ders, and it has long been easier to
tell from his public utterances what
he does not believe than what he
does, He INDUCED in a vast deal
of swearing to-day on the doctrines
of the Trinity and of hell.


Speaking of the Trinity, he said
he believed there were three per-
sons united in one God-head; but if
any one should ask him why he be-
lieved it he should tell him he did
not know anything about it, only
that it was easier to believe that
which he thought conceded with
the doctrines of the New Testa-
ment than to deny it. Orthodoxy
says that men must believe in the
Trinity or they cannot come into
the church. That is called ortho-
doxy, but he called it heathenism.


cit is not an easy thing" said
Mr.. Beecher, g for an honest, man
to know what to preach and what
not to preach. A man who values
morality, and who has the good of
his fellow-man at heart, cannot be
careless as to the things he ought
to teach. 1t was said that Adam
was created perfect. 1t was also
said that Adam sinned, and that in
consequence Of that sin the whole
human race fell. The human race
had existed ON the earth for thou
sands and thousands of years, and
had gone on propagating and null
tiplying until all the waves that
rolled in upon the shore during
those centuries did not contain
drops enough, nor the sands of the
sea particles enough, nor all the
figures of the arithmetic numbers
enough, to compute the preface, to
say nothing of the great history of
the human race. The numbers of
the human race were actually be-
yond computation, and for thou
sands and thousands and thousands
Of years they had been born into
the world, had lived and struggled,
and finally died aud gone-where I?
If you tell me that they have all
gone to heaven, my answer will be
that such a sweeping of mud into
heaven would deiile its purity, and
l cannot accept that. If you tell
me that they have gone to hell, then
| swear by the Lord Jesus Christ,
whom | have sworn to worship for
ever, that you will make an infdel
of me.


"The doctrine that God has been
for thousands of years peopling
this earth with human beings dur
ing a period three,fourths of which
was not Illuminated by an altar or
a church, and in places where a
vast population of those are yet
without light, is to transform the
Almighty into a monster more
hideous than Satan himself; and |
swear by all that is sacred that |
will never worship Satan, though
he should appear dressed in royal
robes and seated on the throne of
Jehovah. Men may say, You will
not go to heaven A heaven pre-
sided over by such a demon as that,
who has been peopling this world
with millions Of human beings, and
then sweeping them off into hell
not like dead flies, but without tax
ling the trouble even to kill them
and gloating and laughing over
their eternal misery, is not such a
heaven as / want to go to. The
doctrine is too horrible. | cannot
believe it, and | won't. They say
the saints in heaven are so happy
that they do not mind the torments
of the damned in hell. But what
sort of saints must they be who
could be happy while looking down
upon the horrors of the bottomless
pitt And by the blood Of Christ
| / denounoe this doctrine, BY the
wounds in His hands and in His
side ] abhor it. BY His groans and
agony / abhor and denounoe it as
that hideous nightmare of the
ology"