Year: 1877

New YORK. December 16.-Th,


virtuous Mr.. Beecher seems to b,


gradually shaking off the old fashion


ed doctrine of the Congressional bod,
i. of which he is member, and striking


out in his accustomed sensational


way. All doctrine hangs lightly upol


his shoulders, and it has long bee,


easier to tell from his public utteran


ces what he does not believe thar
:. what he does. He indulged in a vast
deal of swearing to-day on the doe,
trines of the Trinity and of hell.


Speaking Of the Trinity, he said he
believed there were three persons
united in one God-head but if any
one should ask him why he believed
it, he should tell him he did moi
know any thing about it, only that i,
was easier to believe that which he
thought conceded with the doctrines
of the New Testament than to DENY
it. Orthodoxy says that men must
believe in the Trinity, or they can
not come into the Church. This is
called orthodoxy, but he called it
| heathenism.


1T is not an easy thing said Mr..
Beecher, ''for an honest, conserva-
tive man to know just what to preach
and what not to preach. A man who
values morality, and who has the
good of his fellow men at heart COW
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 OH the earth for thous-
sends and thousands of years, and
had gone on propagating and multi
plying until all the waves that had
rolled in upon the shore during those
centuries did not contain drops
enough, nor the sands Of the sea par
ticles 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 beyond computation, and for
thousands and thousandr and thous-
ands of years they have been born
into the world, had lived and strug-
gled, and finally died and gone
where? If you tell me that they have
all gone to Heaven, my answer will
be that such sweeping of mud into
Heaven would defile its purity, and
can net accept that. If you tell ME
that they have gone to hell, then l
swear by the Lord Jesus Christ,
whom l have sworn to worship for
ever, that yoL will make an Iniidel
of me.


"The doctrine that God has been
for thousands of years peopling this
earth with human beings during
period tnree-fourths of which was not
illuminated by an altar of a church,
and in places where vast population
of those people are yet without light,
is to transform the Almighty into
more hideous than Satan
and swear by all that is
sacred that | will never worship Sa-
tan, though he should appear dressed
in royal robes aud sealed on the
throne of jehovah. Men may say,
'You will not go to heaven A heav-
cn presided over by such demon as
that, who has been peopling this world
with millions of human beings, aud
then sweeping them off into hell--not
like dead flies, but without taking the
trouble even to kill them-and gloat-
ing and laughing over their eternal
misery, is not such a heaven rs l
want to go to. The doctrine is too
horrible. / can not believe it, and /
won't. They say the Saints in heav-
en- are so happy that they do no
mind the torments of the damned in
hell. Bat what sort of Saints must
they be who could be happy while
looking down upon the horrors of the
bottomless pit? And by the blood
of Christ l denounce this doctrine.
3y the wounds in His hands ard His
side l abhor it. BY His groans and
agony l abhor and denounce it as that
hideous nightmare of theology.