der to get to heaven just the same as if it never had
been christened? She said that she believed it would. I then asked her
what good the christening had done her child. She answered, "I do not
know." I then asked her to give me one commandment in the Bible obligating
her to christen her child. She said, "I know of none." I then asked her
why she had her babe christened. She said, "Because most all the people do
around here."

She like thousands of others was taking the custom of the neighborhood, or
religious order, and never searched the Scriptures to know what are the
commandments of God. We need to be doers only of the Word of God. "Not
every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven;
but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." The God of
heaven has given laws and fixed rules and recorded them in the Holy
Scriptures to govern our daily life. These laws we are positively
commanded to obey. To disobey is a sin. 1 John 3:4. Sinners do not go to
heaven. There is not one text in the whole Bible encouraging us to hope of
going to heaven if we are knowingly disobeying any commandment of God. In
this present day a mighty concourse of people are passing on down the way
to an eternity, professing to be children of God, but living careless and
negligent, doing many things they should not do, and failing to do a great
many things they should do.

This greatly reminds me of the way the people regarded a certain stock law
that was passed by the legislature of our district in my boyhood days.
This law forbade the running at large of cattle, hogs, sheep, etc. Now
there was in our neighborhood much of what was called "commons." It was
unfenced land, and was used as a common pasture land for all. Consequently
the enacting of such a law was obnoxious to nearly all of the citizens of
this neighborhood, and it was almost unanimously violated; and because it
was violated by so many it was never enforced. Cattle, sheep, and hogs
continued to run at large the same as if there was no law prohibiting the
same. After a time most people had forgotten there was such a law.

The same is true respecting the Word of God. People have gone on in their
own ways, violating those holy laws until many are doing things, and do
not know there is a law of God forbidding it. God's laws are not held in
the high esteem they should be. They are his power unto salvation to all
that believe. They are able to save the s