that believeth not the Son shall not see life." (John iii. 36.)

It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." (Mark ix. 43, 44.)

Limit the one

The man who

of hell must,

But the criticism which shortens the duration of future punishment proves too much, for, pushed to its legitimate consequences, it also limits the duration of future rewards. If in the first clause of the sentence, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment," "everlasting" means finite duration, then, in the second clause, " But the righteous into life eternal," "eternal" must mean finite duration too. It is the same word (avios) which Christ uses in both instances to express the duration of future punishment and the duration of future reward. and you necessarily limit the other also. would in this way extinguish the fires through the exigencies of his own criticism, go farther and pluck from the brow of the saint the crown of life. If the weeping and gnashing of teeth" must cease, so must the "new song," the thrilling and triumphant Alleluia! Oh! impious to dream of such a catastrophe! Shocking and daring to contemplate an end so dire and irreparable! False and ruthless is the seer who in the visions of blear illusion has pictured faded crown, and shattered harp, and withered palm! What! and shall cursed annihilation invade the territories of immortality, to silence heaven's melodies and to terminate its bliss, to extinguish intellect, and to surround with dreary void the throne of the Eternal? No, this is not the heaven of the Bible: but this must be the heaven, unworthy as it is of the character of God, and destructive as it is of the hopes of man, of those who would shorten the period of final retribution. They must, upon their own principles of interpretation, be

content with a heaven finite in duration, if they are resolved to have a finite hell.

Those persons who object to the doctrine of eternal punishment, as derogatory to the character of God, are particularly fond of referring to his goodness in nature. Well, for a moment, let us close the volume of God's word and open the volume of God's works. We think we can read in both not only of "the goodness" but of “the severity of God." If "GOD IS LOVE” be written in the book of nature, is it not also written in the Book of Revelation? and if "OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE is inscribed on the pages of the Bible, is it not inscribed as legibly in nature's book? Let the man who blends all the attributes of God into one, and that a sort of easy good nature that never interferes with culprits, like the over-indulgence of the parent who, by his weak-mindedness and laxity of discipline, has lost all authority in his house; let such a man point me to the rich and quiet landscape, teeming with plenty, graced with elegant villas, and even the cottages of which have an air of comfort, each peeping forth from its nook of leaves; a landscape of rich corn fields and pastures for herds and flocks, with cattle drinking from the streams and sheep feeding in the plains; let him point me to all this, and I will point him to the wide-stretching desert, sterile and unproductive, parched and dry, where no water sparkles and no vegetation displays its refreshing green. Let him tell me of the cloudless sky, and the glorious sunset, and the balmy atmosphere, and the heavenly calm; and I will tell him of the terrible thunder-storm, with its red lightnings sparing neither goodly oak, nor gorgeous fane, nor helpless man; and I will tell him of the rude tempest that cares not for the merchant's treasure, nor for the widow's sailor-son; and I will tell him of the fierce

volcano bellowing forth death, burying the teeming city beneath a sea of molten fire, wrapping in its shroud of flame the bride in her ornaments, the mother and her babe. Let him show me all the evidences of health, bright eyes, rosy cheeks, stalworth arms, sinewy frames; and I will show him the indications of disease, sunken eye-balls, pallid countenances, tottering footsteps; and I will show him famine denying bread to the hungry, and plague thinning by thousands the ranks of the living. Ah! then, the God who, in the volume of nature, has written sterility on the soil, dearth in the corn-field, pestilence on the atmosphere, devastation in the track of the hurricane, ruin on the wreck-bestrewed shore, penury on the dwellings of the indigent, sickness on the brows of afflicted men, and death on the grave-yards and cemeteries that throng the earth; this God must be He who has written in the Bible the sentence which He shall pronounce at the last: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

The scheme which some men propound, of admitting the souls of the wicked to heaven after ages of suffering in "the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone," makes a purgatory of hell. If sin is to be expiated in this way, then Christ is not exclusively "the door, the way, and the life:" then the wide gate leads to life as well as the strait gate; then the broad way conducts to heaven as unerringly as the narrow way, only the route is more circuitous, and painful for a while. According to this theory, hell is nearer to heaven than any of you supposed; it is, in fact, but the suburbs of the New Jerusalem; the fire and brimstone are close upon the jasper walls; the "outer darkness" is near to the blaze of endless day; and the weeping and gnashing of teeth are but the prelude to the Hallelujah of triumph and to the song of bursting praise!

In opposition to this apocalypse of pretended seers, with its false information on the subject of the lost, we place the Revelation of John, with its Divinely-authenticated intelligence on the condition of the damned: "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." (Rev. xiv. 11.) "And beside all this," said Abraham in Paradise to the rich man in hell, 66 between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." (Luke xvi. 26.)

But upon the supposition that the unjust man, destined to be unjust still, that the filthy man, doomed to be filthy still, were admitted in their sinful state into heaven, they could not possibly experience happiness there. If outward objects sights surpassing beautiful, and sounds surpassing sweet-could render them happy, their felicity would be certain and complete; but, it is well known, that happiness is much more dependent upon the inward state of a man's mind than upon the outward circumstances of a man's condition. Wretchedness in wealth and happiness in poverty, palace misery and cottage joy, are conditions and feelings, examples of which are supplied us in the everyday history of human life. The child, taken from the widow's cabin by the bleak and barren moorland, to be the adopted daughter of the noble lady in the stately mansion, pines and sighs, in the midst of splendour and plenty, to be back with her brothers at play. To gather wild flowers, and chase the bee, and listen to the songbird of the glen have greater attractions for her than the splendidly-bound volumes, and beautiful pictures, and costly furniture of the rich baronial hall. The child was unprepared by previous training for this great transition. The refined enjoyments and luxuriant pleasures of the mansion were not adapted to her tastes, and habits, and

desires. What others enjoyed with manifest delight, she entirely failed to relish, and, longing to escape from a state of splendid gloom and elegant restraint, she asked, "Lady, kind lady, let me go." But the repulsion of feeling is still stronger if the disparity be moral. I can conceive of a libertine feeling inexpressibly wretched during a month's visit to a pious family. Their godly conversation and devotional spirit, their hymn-singing and worship, their frequent study of the Bible and perusal of religious biography, their strict observance of the Sabbath and punctual attendance at the house of God; all these are wearisome and irksome to him in the extreme. There is no sympathy between his tastes, and feelings, and pursuits and those of this pious family. He is wearied with his visit, and longs for a return to his old habits and tavern companions, when he can again indulge in filthy conversation, and join in the loud laugh, and sing merrily the drunkard's song. Well, just for a moment, imagine such a man as this admitted into heaven. He cannot breathe its moral atmosphere, nor indulge in holy feeling, nor lose himself in blissful ecstasy, nor thrill with absorbing song. What cares he that the city he inhabits has walls of jasper, and gates of pearl, and streets of gold; these cannot make him happy while his character is unjust and his heart is unclean. With the holy society of heaven he has no emotions in common; he cannot feel devotional, nor enjoy worship, nor love God. Heaven, in fact, to such a man, would be more intolerable than hell. In the absence of all "meetness for the inheritance with the saints in light," he would willingly forsake the unappreciated pleasures and the unenjoyed fellowships of heaven, and seeking elsewhere more congenial society would gladly cry, Hail, horrors, hail, infernal world, and thou profoundest hell!"

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