it was impossible to be mistaken, and I had myself been trained in them. In these days, indeed, they are seldom stated in all their breadth and all their horror. Most religious teachers profess to hold them, but content themselves with a few vague and stray allusions; and if pressed on the subject manage in a thousand ways to get rid of them. They envelop them in a cloud of modifications and exceptions, and thus evacuate them of all real significance; or they so indefinitely extend the conception of repentance, and admit the validity of a repentance so purely hasty and superficial, as to leave their doctrine in the condition of a mere dangerous formula without any real bearing on the ordinary lives of men. There are hundreds of volumes of modern sermons by clergymen of all schools in which you either do not find the word "Hell" at all, or caly in the form of some dim, verbal, and half apologetic phrase. Now this common doctrine should either be held or not held. If it be indeed a tenet of our faith, it is one so appalling that it cannot be obtruded too incessantly, or too vividly portrayed. But if, as I believe, the current opinions about Hell are not

tenets of our faith, they cannot be too honestly or too distinctly repudiated.

Clergymen of all denominations bewail their utter inability to prevent the spread of materialism and infidelity. I, for my part, cannot be surprised at this when I feel within me the revolt of an indignant conscience against much which is taught as an essential part of a Gospel of salvation. It was the doctrine of endless torments which made an infidel of the elder Mill.1 Does the reader suppose that in this respect he stood alone? Those who work among our London artisans know well the effect that the doctrine has on them. Never was there a wilder and more monstrous delusion than that it is efficacious in deterring them from sin! "I am but thirty-two: I am a coke-burner, which has injured my lungs. I have worked seven days and seven nights, on and off. You see I haven't had my chance," said a poor man to Mrs. Marie Hilton.

"Com

1 Mill's Autobiography, p. 41. Three Essays, p. 114. pared with this, every other objection to Christianity sinks into insignificance." It was this, too, that chiefly made Theodore Parker a Unitarian.

See p. 204.

"Do you really think, master, that God Almighty will put me in fire for ever and ever, after putting me in this here muck all my lifetime?" asked a rough navvy of a city missionary not long ago.1 People who sit in their armchairs may show that his theology was very wicked; but are such minds as his likely to be restrained by preaching endless torments? That has been done very amply in all ages; with what effect? Sixteen centuries intervened between the time when the first and second of the following passages were penned :"Quae tunc spectaculi latitudo! quid admirer? quid rideam? ubi gaudeam, ubi exsultem, spectans tot et tantos reges . . in imis tenebris congemiscentes ? item praesides, persecutores dominici nominis saevioribus flammis quam ipsi saevierunt insultantibus contra Christianos liquescentes? praeterea sapientes illos philosophos coram discipulis suis una conflagrantibus erubescentes ? etiam poetas non ad Rhadamanthi nec ad Minois, sed ad inopinati Christi tribunal palpitantes ? tunc histriones cognoscendi solutiores multo per ignem; tunc spectandus auriga in flammeâ rotâ totus 1 White, Life in Christ, p. 490 (third ed.).

rubens; tunc xystici non in gymnasiis sed in igne jaculati."-De Spectac. 30.

So wrote Tertullian centuries ago, and I quote the passage not for its hard savagery-though there certainly are natures in which such savagery is heightened by this belief-but for its ghastly ingenuity. And have not similar strains been uttered ever since by those who maintain the popular doctrine? When has the teaching of Jonathan Edwards been repudiated by them? Where have they refused to endorse the sentiments of his revoltingly horrible sermon entitled "Sinners in the hands of an angry God"? "The God that holds you over the pit of hell much in the same way as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked." Is this to be regarded as orthodox teaching, or not? Is this the God who has bidden us to love our enemies? Is this the God of whom we are taught that His love is deeper than that of a mother, and that His tender mercies are over all His works?

And in what respect does the teaching of Jonathan Edwards on this subject differ from that of not a few

English and American ministers who have sent me their denunciations? Has Mr. Spurgeon ceased to use such language as the following?

"Thou wilt look up there on the throne of God, and it shall be written, 'For ever!' When the damned jingle the burning irons of their torment they shall say, 'For ever!' When they howl, Echo cries, 'For ever."

"For ever' is written on their racks,

'For ever' on their chains;

'For ever' burneth in the fire,

'For ever,' ever reigns."

Can those who dwell on such ghastly imaginations try to realise the significance of these expressions? Such oratory has been heard for many centuries; and although those who have used it may often have done a very blessed work by virtue of their other doctrines, there is overwhelming evidence to show that the outcome of such delineations taken alone-were they not rejected as they are by the instinctive faith of man could only be hysteria, terror, and religious madness in the weak; indignant infidelity or incredulous abhorrence in the strong.