Manford

“ To Pauline the fact that Manford wanted to be alone with her made even such renunciations easy. How many years had passed since he had expressed such a wish? And did she owe his tardy return to the Mahatma and reduced hips, or the Inspirational Healer and renewed optimism? If only a woman could guess what inclined a man's heart to her, what withdrew it! ”

“ That's what loused up the whole show!"
Manford groaned. "What does that matter now? Forty-four cc's of hypnomecholyl! What kind of a doctor are you, Grayson? Don't you know you could kill a man that way?" ”

“ The door opened, and Lita came in. It was the first time since their arrival that she had appeared at breakfast. She faced Manford as she entered, and Nona saw her father's expression change. It was like those funny old portraits in the picture-restorers' windows, with a veil of age and dust removed from one half to show the real surface underneath. Lita's entrance did not make him look either younger or happier; it simply removed from his face the soul-disguising veil which life interposes between a man's daily world and himself. ”

“ Better for him, for the Thrill Show, for us."
"Well," Manford said feebly.
"Well, nothing!" The Producer's voice was harsh. "Do you get the significance of all this? Do you know what happens when the FCC medical officer wants to re-check Spizer? An injunction! A court battle! Then Spizer goes on the stand as Exhibit A, and we lose. No more Thrill Show." He looked at their faces individually. "No more jobs. Bankruptcy. Poverty. The Jam."
This time, the shiver was collective.
"We can't let that happen!" Manford licked his lips. "What about the sponsors? They got pull, don't they? ”

“ Well, more golf then, anyhow."
Getting away from things; the perpetual evasion, moral, mental, physical, which he heard preached, and saw practised, everywhere about him, except where money-making was concerned! He, Dexter Manford, who had been brought up on a Minnesota farm, paid his own way through the State College at Delos, and his subsequent course in the Harvard Law School; and who, ever since, had been working at the top of his pitch with no more sense of strain, no more desire for evasion (shirking, he called it) than a healthy able-bodied man of fifty had a right to feel! ”

“ Manford said hastily. "He passed the routine FCC physical, and had the usual adrenalin and hypnomecholyl dose. I mean, you saw the girl didn't you? She was fine, wasn't she?" He beamed.
"Yes," said the Producer. "She certainly was fine." Frick stirred uncomfortably behind him.
"Anyway," the Director continued, "we're dropping in the dinosaur film—that's always good for a few shivers—and we've sent a crew into the Studio to get that man out of there—"
The Producer nodded his head toward his assistant. "Frick," he said, eyes on Manford. "You tell him." ”

“ She had visited the baby, seen the cook, consulted with Powder about the working of the new burglar-alarm, gone over the gardens, catalogues in hand, with the head-gardener, walked down to the dairy and the poultry yard to say that Mr. Manford would certainly inspect them both the next day, and called up Maisie Bruss to ask news of her mother, and tell her to prepare a careful list for the reception to the Cardinal ”

“ Having been often solicited, by my friends, to publish an account of my travels and labors in the West, after much hesitation and doubt, I have concluded to accede to their wishes. But before doing so, I will say a little about my early life. Newburyport, Mass., is my native place. My father, whose full name I bear, was from Denmark; my mother from Amsterdam, Holland. I was the first born of a family of three boys, one of whom, Frederick, many years since passed the way of all the earth. The other, James, resides in Texas. ”

“ Mr. Lewis, with whom I debated in Springfield, sent me word, that if I should visit Jerseyville, Ill., his church would be at my service. Accordingly, I made an appointment in that place, and Mr. Lewis took a seat with me in the desk. I told him I was perfectly willing he should make any strictures on my discourse he might see proper. “Oh, no,” said he, “I have invited you into my pulpit, and it would not be proper for me to reply to your discourse.” In my sermon, I said nothing about other creeds, but presented my own faith in as clear a light as possible. Mr. ”

“ God creates no superfluities. The fish of every sea, lake, river, have eyes, because there is light in those waters, but the beams of the sun had never penetrated that cavern, therefore eyes were useless, and hence the denizens of that eternal dungeon, have no visional organ. Nothing is created in vain; every thing answers some useful purpose in the economy of the Creator. Here is a solid foundation on which to rest.
In Bedford, Ind., a Presbyterian minister abruptly attacked me at the close of a discourse. “If the pains of the damned will cease,” said he, “so will the joys of the saved ”

“ He said he had helped steal Kentucky and Indiana from the Indians. He was an intelligent man, but a zealous Atheist. He admitted that faith in a God of goodness, wisdom and justice, and in the immortal blessedness of mankind, was more satisfactory, and yielded more happiness than Atheism ”

“ There was nothing there then but wild prairie. From Alton I proceeded to Jerseyville, a small burg then, but now a beautiful town, and delivered my message. Thence to Exeter, Naples, and on to Macomb, through Rushville. In all these places I spoke to the people. In Macomb we now have an excellent society and a fine meeting-house. Have often lectured there since my first visit. Had some talk here with a Presbyterian clergyman by the name of Chase, I think.
“You do not believe in hell; but that is as clearly revealed as heaven.” ”

“ They will as surely reap the reward of their evil doing, as there is a God in heaven. For so great a sin to go unpunished nature’s laws must be reversed.
Delivered two sermons in Rainsville. Urged my brethren to live as becometh believers in the best religion ever entertained by men or angels. It is all truth and righteousness, and our character and life should be truthful and righteous. It is better to be an Orthodox christian, than a Universalist sinner. We might as well be without the knowledge of the truth, as to hold it in unrighteousness. The gospel blesses those only who practice it ”

“ I mentally exclaimed, how selfish, contracted and partial are the creeds of men. The Catholic consigns all to hell outside of his church; the Methodist sends all to perdition who do not believe that Jesus is the eternal God; the Presbyterian condemns all to everlasting burnings, but the elect few; the Campbellite has no hope for any beyond the grave, who do not adhere to his creed, and take water. The truth concerning salvation, is all embraced in a few words. Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.” ”

“ Called on A. B. Grosh, Utica, N. Y., who was then [90] publishing The Gospel Advocate. He possesses fine ability, and is, every way, a noble man. Crossed the Hudson river, at Troy, and after six weeks traveling reached Princeton, Mass., where my mother resided. Visited my old home in Haverhill, and shed a tear over my brother’s grave in Plaistow, N. H., attended a Conference meeting in Boston, and then sailed from Boston for Philadelphia, in the brig Mary Ann, commanded by Captain Chase. ”

“ Universalism, he made out, agrees in one or two points with infidelity, therefore he wisely concluded that the whole system is no better than infidelity. Let us see what Campbellism is according to this rule. Mormonism says, there is a God, and that he will torment millions of mankind eternally; Campbellism says the same, therefore Campbellism is no better than Mormonism, and Mr. Matlock might as well go to Salt Lake and marry a dozen of his Mormon sisters. Paganism says, there is a burning hell for the wicked ”

“ That this preacher has always had the greatest success in the dark and ignorant parts of the earth, is evident; his kingdom is a kingdom of darkness. He is a great enemy of light. He will not permit his disciples to hear a religious or philosophical discourse, read a religious or philosophical book or paper, that contradicts his creed—they must be like the old knight, read only one side of the guide-board, and if they happen to get an idea the old creed don’t sanction, they are called heretics. They may think, but not out of a given circle ”

“ Our ministers who have always labored where our cause is well established, have no idea of the mean and contemptible opposition a laborer encounters in a new field, where hardly any one knows any thing of our faith or its history. At the close of a sermon I delivered in Frederick, a clergyman of the place, arose and poured forth the vials of his wrath. He said Universalism was the lowest grade of infidelity, that the blasphemies of Tom Paine were purity itself compared to it ”

“ Young, a Methodist minister, tell the following story in his pulpit at St. Louis, about Mr. Taylor and an imaginary clergyman: “There lived an old and rich man near Lexington, Ky., by the name of Taylor, who was a Universalist. Some time since, he sent to Cincinnati for a preacher of his [84] choice to come and preach for him, and the preacher having performed his labor, Mr. T. paid him one hundred dollars. All right; preachers should be paid for their work like other folks. Some time after, the preacher visited him again, by Mr. T.’s request, and he again paid him one hundred dollars. ”

“ In a few more years the sun will rise on the last original owner of our national domain. Our swords and our vices [72] have been doing their work of death ever since the Indians welcomed the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, and they are rising in judgment and condemning us. It seems to be a law of nature, that a subjugated people must either blend with their conquerors or be annihilated. The Indians will not unite with us, and destruction is their doom. The weak, if they attempt to stand alone, fall. ”

“ I am not at all surprised to hear people, who all their life-time have lived in the shade and gloom and sorrow of a dark, repulsive, and cruel theology, say, “Universalism is too good to be true.” There is such a vast difference between that partial, gloomy creed, and “the grace of God which bringeth salvation to all men,” I do not wonder they think the latter too good to be true. ”

“ Is not faith in such a God, such a Savior, and such a Destiny, good in the hour of death? The truth is, nothing but this can afford peace and consolation in that dark and solemn hour. Atheism, Deism, Partialism, are found wanting in man’s dying moments, as when in the possession of health and vigor. ”

“ They think God is frowning on this world, that his wrath is kindled to its hottest pitch, that he has already banished most of the dead to the infernal regions, and that during every moment of time crowds are driven from earth to hell, and that we all stand on the very brink of a bottomless pit. No wonder the victims of this terrible belief are nearly insane. ”

“ Yea, the sun, moon and stars, the refreshing shower, the genial breeze, and productive earth, should all tell us of fire and fury, instead of love, goodness and justice, if eternal woe is to be the doom of half of mankind. ”

“ The fires in which the damned will live and move, will be in full blast when this earth shall be gray with age, when the flames of the mid-day sun shall flicker like the dying taper in its socket, yea, they will continue to burn deep into the souls of countless millions while heaven shall stand and God exist. ”

“ Some there are, who tell us, that death is an eternal sleep, that the grave and the worm will devour our all; that we are like the bubble on the wide ocean, seen for a moment, and then disappear to be known no more forever. But thank God, we have reason to hope for better things. We have reason to hope that there is a life beyond this life, a world beyond this world, where friends will meet, where the great family of God will meet, to part no more; that on the blissful plains of immortality, the severed links of humanity will be welded in an immortal chain, never more to be severed. ”

“ But what is one year, what are ten years, yea, seventy years of imprisonment, compared to endless suffering in hell? Let all the suffering of head and heart, soul and body, that all mankind have endured in all ages, and all climes, be combined in one pang, and that one pang would not amount to as much woe as one soul will suffer if doomed to endure ceaseless misery. ”

“ His mercy is everlasting—“the mercy of the Lord endureth forever.” The mercy of the Lord then is great, universal and everlasting. It is by the mercy of God we are now blessed; as his mercy is universal, there is no place in the universe where his mercy will not reach us; and as it is eternal, the time will never come when he will not bless us. ”

“ But the terrible theory, that we inherit by nature, corruption, evil, death, damnation, and hell, from Adam, that they permeate our very nature, corrupt the very springs of our life, constituting us “fire-brands of hell,” and that nothing but a miracle by Almighty God can purify us, and save us from endless burnings, I reject as utterly false and monstrous. ”

“ If we are disloyal to that law, we are crushed on the iron track. And what is true now ever will be true—obedience ever will lead to heaven, and disobedience to hell. Instead of their being three judgments, there is only one; and instead of three seasons of judgment, the true judgment is eternal. I believe, then, in an everlasting and universal judgment. ”

“ You are a Calvinist, and in the language of John Wesley, “You may call me an infidel, a Turk, a Mahomedan, but don’t call me a Calvinist. I had rather believe in no God than believe he is an almighty tyrant.” You believe in a burning hell in which God will plunge most of the dead, to be his victims eternally. Is there any thing in the baldest infidelity half as infernal as that? You believe that God creates us all totally depraved, not capable of thinking a good thought or performing a good act, and if we do not change our nature, he will roast us in hell forever. ”