Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1889 — HE PRAYS TO GO TO HELL. [ARTICLE]

HE PRAYS TO GO TO HELL.

Pittsburg Commercial Gaiette. A thousand people were startled on Sunday night when the Rev. George O. Barnes,the famous evangelist,said while preaching to a copgregation in Louisville: “I have prayed all my life, and pray now, that whfen I die God will send me to hell. Yes, I pray now to go to hell.” It was an unlooked for utterance even from one as erratic~in his doctrines as the Kentucky evangelist The explanation of such a remarkable desire on the part of the minister came with its expression in the shape of an announcement of a new theory .or belief as to the hereafter. Rev. Mr. Barnes was preaching on “The Resurrection and the Punishment that would be meted out to those who sin in this life.” He said the idea that a man should be condemned to eternal punishment for the sins he could permit in three-score and ten years was one worthy of the devil; and did the Bible bear out such adoctrine. Every person, said Mr. Barnes, would ultimately reach heaven, and it was only a question as to whether the way pointed out by the Savior was taken or that which went through the hades. Hell, he said, was but a crucible, where men’s sins were burned away and the soul chastened, and when the inmate of purgatory had been sufficiently punished be would be transported to a seat in heaven. The sufferer’s condition may be alleviated while in hell, and Mr. Barnes prayed to go there to lighten the burdens of the damned. Mr. Barnes %ss the first preacher to advance the theory that bodily ailments might be cured by faith, and first attracted attention by anointing converts and the afflicted. He made a great furor in London and other parts of the world, but of late he has ceased to anoint.