“DAMNED BY DECENCY”

Shannon News, 31 August 1926, Page 2

“DAMNED BY DECENCY”

GHRISTLiESS Evangelist W. P. Nicholson made another of his characteristic addresses to a big- crowd last night. He described Christless Christians as Christians who had habits of Christianity, hung about them like gifts on a Christmas tree, yet were as surely damned as any of the more public sinners. “It’s an awful thing to get wrapped round with this smug complacency,’’ he declared. “I would rather know that when 1 died I was going to hell than to die thinking that I was going to heaven and then finish up in hell.” Ananias and ; Sapphira, he said, brought their humbug and hypocrisy into the house of God, and were stricken dead, If that game were started in the churches in Lismore next -Sunday there wouldn’t be enough coffins ,to bury the Christless Christians. Every church would be a morgue. “See them standing up in church next Sunday,” .10 said, “saying their creed. If re-verrice and decorum went for anything, wings should be sprouting from their shoulders. See them on Monday half naked at a ball. See them smoking like chimneys outside churches immediately after services. See them waiting in a queue at the picture theatre. One day In the vestry, the next in the vestibule of hell. There are more people damned by decency and pride than were ever damned by drunkenness and debauchery. “You cannot go to heaven on your mother’s or father’s faith. Christianity no more runs in a family than wooden logs. Yop might have most pious parents and develop into the worst type of religious Pharisaical humbug and hypocrite. I believe that the devil would as soon damn you through the church as through an hotel. He would rather damn you decent than damn you debasecl. Why should all you decent, respectable people go to hell in greater numbers than the worst rough-neck sinners.’’