Orleans County Monitor

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was applauded during a sermon by the clapping of hands and stamping of feet, and stopping short the eloquent wag said:

"Some people will be sadly troubled at that; how would they have got along with the teachings of Christ, which were often interrupted and broken by question and answer? For myself I do not know why what is an appropriate response or demonstration of approval in one place and on one day, is not to be allowed in the assembly of freedom in Christ Jesus. We are brought into liberty, not bondage. I like it, but don't let my liking betray you into any impropriety."

And here is the passage which was applauded:

"To make the way of salvation hard and gloomy is contrary to the spirit of God's Word. No just man teaches the hard tenet of predestined, inevitable, eternal damnation, cruel as a lion's paw holding a mouse, from which there is no escape, and calls that good news. That's a grim joke. Fore-ordained to eternal damnation, and held still responsible as for actual transgression! To say that such a doctrine of relentless fate is taught by God's Word! Egypt with her grim deities, and Greece and Rome, with avenging furies, are more humane theologies than that. I have good news. 'What is it! Am I released? Have I a new trial?' No; you are to be cut into inch pieces, and your children are to stand by to rejoice over it.' So we were to be angels in heaven—were to be delighted spectators of the torments of the damned in hell. Monstrous doctrine! The Devil could have preached that. Any presentation of christianity that does not show it as balmy to the soul as sunlight to the birds in June, fails as a system of theology. The system which shuts out hope from the soul is blasphemy to God and His love."