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reason,--it is perfectly clear that Captain Kruger was
about to do an infinitely generous action. Yet Mr.
Talmage will tell us that if that captain was not a
Christian, and if he had sent the bullet crashing
through his brain in order that his comrades might eat
his body, and live to reach their wives and homes,--
his soul, from that ship, would have gone, by dark
and tortuous ways, down to the prison of eternal pain.
Is it possible that Christ would eternally damn a
man for doing exactly what Christ would have done,
had he been infinitely generous, under the same cir-
cumstances? Is not self-denial in a man as praise-
worthy as in a God? Should a God be worshiped,
and a man be damned, for the same action?
According to Mr. Talmage, every soldier who fought
for our country in the Revolutionary war, who was
not a Christian, is now in hell. Every soldier, not a
Christian, who carried the flag of his country to vic-
tory--either upon the land or sea, in the war of 1812,
is now in hell. Every soldier, not a Christian, who
fought for the preservation of this Union,--to break
the chains of slavery--to free four millions of people
--to keep the whip from the naked back--every man
who did this--every one who died at Andersonville
and Libby, dreaming that his death would help make
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the lives of others worth living, is now a lost and
wretched soul. These men are now in the prison of
God,--a prison in which the cruelties of Libby and
Andersonville would be regarded as mercies,--in
which famine would be a joy.