efore power or mystery, heads that always keep a manly
poise, and eyes that boldly challenge all things from height to depth.

DAMNED SINNERS.

"Thou shalt be brought unto the blood of sprinkling, as an
undone helpless, damned sinner."
--John Wesley, Sermon on "Justification by Faith."

Polite ears, which are often the longest, will be shocked at the title
of this article. This is an age in which it is accounted vulgar to
express plain doctrines in plain language. Spurgeon was the last doctor
of a good old school. Their theology was hateful: an insult to man and
a blasphemy against God--if such a being exists; but they did not beat
about the bush, and if they thought you were booked for hell, as was
most likely, they took care to let you know it. They called a spade
a spade, not a common implement of agricultural industry. They were
steeped in Bible English, and did not scruple to use its striking
substantives and adjectives. When they pronounced "hell" they aspirated
the "h" and gave the full weight of the two "l's." "Damn" and
"damnation" shot from their mouths full and round, like a cannon ball
sped with a full blast of gunpowder.

But, alas, how are the mighty fallen! No longer do the men of God
indulge in thunderous Saxon. They latinise their sermons and diminish
the effect of terrible teaching. You shall hear them designate
"hell" with twenty roundabout euphemisms, and spin "damnation" into
"condemnation" and "damned" into "condemned," until it has not force
enough to frighten a cat off a garden wall.

Let us not be blamed, however, if we emulate the plain speech of the
honest old theologians, and of the English Bible which is still used in
our public schools. We despise the hypocritical cry of "vulgar!" We
are going to write, not on "condemned transgressors," but on "damned
sinners." Yes, DAMNED SINNERS.

Now, beloved reader, it behoves us to define and distinguish, as well as
amplify and expatiate. We must therefore separate the "damned" from the
"sinners." Not indeed in fact, for they are inseparable, being in truth
one and the same thing; for the adjective is the substantive, and
the substantive is the adjective, and the "damned" are "sinners" and
"sinners" are the "damned." The separation is merely _mental_, for
reasons of _convenience_; just as we separate the inseparable, length
from breadth, in our definition of a line. This is necessary to
clear and coherent thought; man's mind