man might act in this world, he could fix it up all right in the next,
society would be terribly demoralized, and the human race demolished
in a few years. The fear that, if we are bad and unforgiven here, it
will not be well for us in the next existence, is the chief influence
that keeps civilization from rushing back to semi-barbarism, and
semi-barbarism from rushing into midnight savagery, and midnight
savagery from extinction; for it is the astringent impression of all
nations, Christian and heathen, that there is no future chance for
those who have wasted this.

Multitudes of men who are kept within bounds would say, "Go to, now!
Let me get all out of this life there is in it. Come, gluttony, and
inebriation, and uncleanness, and revenge, and all sensualities, and
wait upon me! My life may be somewhat shortened in this world by
dissoluteness, but that will only make heavenly indulgence on a larger
scale the sooner possible. I will overtake the saints at last, and
will enter the Heavenly Temple only a little later than those who
behaved themselves here. I will on my way to heaven take a little
wider excursion than those who were on earth pious, and I shall go to
heaven _via_ Gehenna and _via_ Sheol." Another chance in the next
world means free license and wild abandonment in this.

Suppose you were a party in an important case at law, and you knew
from consultation with judges and attorneys that it would be tried
twice, and the first trial would be of little importance, but that the
second would decide everything; for which trial would you make the
most preparation, for which retain the ablest attorneys, for which be
most anxious about the attendance of witnesses? You would put all the
stress upon the second trial, all the anxiety, all the expenditure,
saying, "The first is nothing, the last is everything." Give the race