s may mean by them. Now what
do those hymns mean by such words, if they mean anything at all?
Surely what I have been preaching to you, and what seems to some of
you, I fear, strange and new doctrine. And what else does the
Church Catechism mean, when it bids every child thank God for having
brought him into a state of salvation? For mind, throughout the
whole Church Catechism there is not one word about what people
commonly call heaven and hell; not one word though 'heaven and hell'
are now-a-days generally the first things about which children are
taught. Not one word is the child taught about what will happen to
him after death, except that his body will rise again, and that
Christ will be his Judge after he is dead as well as while he is
alive: but not one word about that salvation after he is dead,
which is almost the only thing of which one hears in many pulpits.
And why, but because the Catechism teaches the child to believe that
Jesus Christ is his salvation now, in this life, and believes that
to be enough for him to know? For if Christ be eternal, His
salvation must be eternal also. If Christ's life be in the child,
eternal life must be in the child; for Christ's life must be
eternal, even as Christ Himself; and that is enough for the child,
and for us also.

And with this agrees that great text of Scripture, 'When the wicked
man turneth away from his wickedness, and doeth that which is lawful
and right, he shall save his soul alive.' People now-a-days are apt
to make two mistakes about that one text. First they forget the
'when,' and read it as if it stood, 'If the wicked man turn away
from his wickedness in this life, he shall save his soul in the next
life:' but the Bible says much more than that. It says, that when
he turns, then and there, that moment he shall save his soul alive.
And next, they read the text as if it stood, 'he shall save his
soul.' Here again, my friends, the Bible says a great deal more; it
says, that he shall save his soul alive. Perhaps that does not seem
to you any great difference? Alas, alas, my friends, I fear that
there are too many now, as there have been in all times, who do not
care for the difference. Provided 'their souls are saved,' by which
they mean, provided they escape torment after they die, it matters
nothing to them whether their souls are saved alive, or saved dead;
they do not even know the difference between a dead soul and a live
soul; because th