Such an argument, with an illustration right on the blackboard of the sky,
in plain sight, would strike terror to the sinner, and he would want to
come into the fold _too_ quick. What the religion of this country wants,
to make it take the cake, is a hell that the wayfaring man, though a
Democrat or a Greenbacker, can see with the naked eye. The way it is now,
the sinner, if he wants to find out anything about the hereafter, has to
take it second handed, from some minister or deacon who has not seen it
himself, but has got his idea of it from some other fellow who maybe
dreamed it out.
Some deacon tells a sinner all about the orthodox hell, and the sinner
does not know whether to believe him or not. The deacon may have lied to
the sinner some time in a horse trade, or in selling him goods, and beat
him, and how does he know but the same deacon is playing a brace game on
him on the hereafter, or playing him for a sardine.
Now, if the people who advance these ideas of heaven or hell, had a
license to point to the moon, the nice, cool moon, as heaven, which would
be plausible, to say the least, and say that it was heaven, and prove it,
and could prove that the sun was the other place, which looks reasonable,
according to all we have heard about 'tother place, the moon would be so
full there would not be standing room, and they would have to turn
Republicans away, while the sun would be playing to empty benches, and
there would only be a few editors there who got in on passes.
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