binds him to seek our good and only our good. We are something more than blocks that the carver may cast into the fire after his first trial is unsuccessful: we are living material that he will fashion at last into his own glorious likeness.

But may not a Father chastise? Yes; chastise, but not torment; chastise, but not forever; chastise, but always to correct.

I am told, however, that whatever befalls the soul, God is not to blame. He does give time and opportunity. If we do not improve them the fault is ours. Dr. Nehemiah Adams was wont to use this illustration: "A railroad train is advertised to start at a certain hour. If we are there a minute too late, we lose our opportunity of going upon an important journey. We think this reasonable. Why, then should we think it unreasonable for God to make us lose our chance for eternity, if we do not take the opportunity during life?"

This is my answer: I am going from here to Chicago. I miss my train. Very good; that is my lookout. I am the loser, and it is my fault. Now, carry out Dr. Adams' parallel. Because I have missed my train once, the company resolves never to sell me another ticket, never to give me another opportunity of riding upon their lines, and so far as lies in their power, decree that I never shall have another chance of getting to Chicago!

I say any railroad management that would pursue such a policy, would be idiotic to the last degree, and base beyond all power of expression! And yet it is this hypothetical piece of miserable human stupidity and meanness that Dr. Adams chooses whereby to "vindicate the ways of God to men." He would have to go far before he could find a more imbecile illustration!

This theory robs God, not only of his goodness, but also of his power. It says that he will always have a rival in his own universe. There will always be rebellion. If so, who can tell whether his throne will be secure or not?

In view of the considerations given, in the name of reason, I deny this terrible doctrine. I deny it in the name of human nature,— in the name of those unfortunates it has sent to the mad-house, in the name of the homes it has hung with midnight, the hopes it has blasted, the hearts it has torn; in the name of humanity among whose best affections it has scattered the fire of cruelty and hatred, turning the hand of man against his brother, lighting the fires of persecution, unsheathing the sword of the fanatic, erecting the gibbet and building the inquisition; in the name of God himself, I deny this outrage of the ages, this nightmare of the centuries, this madness of theology, this insanity of the creeds, this blot upon the history of human thought, this stain upon

the Divine government, this insult to Jehovah ! In the name of all that is pure and lovely and of good report, I deny the hideous theory which turns the Universal Father into an Almighty fiend, which turns a God of love into a God of hatred, which makes the beneficent ruler of the world, a vengeful and malignant being, worseinfinitely worse than all the Atillas, and Torquemadas, and kings of Dahomey, and Thugs of India, and Assassins of Arabia, and French Revolutionary tribunals, and American slave-hunters, with their blood-hounds thrown in worse than these most cruel and devilish examples of earthly cruelty and devilishness ROLLED INTO ONE!

On the other hand, I affirm that the only reasonable outcome to those who believe in immortality at all, is the triumph of good over evil in every soul and throughout the universe. I affirm that the spirit of love which is manifested in all human relationships, that is especially manifested in such souls as Xavier, Paul and Jesus, will search every wilderness on every planet, will scour perdition itself, to find the last lost sheep!

I believe that the cry of the Lost Soul, in Whittier's poem, will sooner or later be the humble and honest prayer of every one who has wandered from God and righteousness:

"Father of all,' he urges his strong plea,
"Thou lovest all: thy erring child may be
Lost to himself, but never lost to thee!

"All souls are thine; the wings of morning bear
None from that presence which is everywhere;
Nor hell itself can hide; for Thou art there.

"Through sins of sense, perversities of will,
Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame
and ill,

Thy pitying eye is on thy creature still.

"Wilt thou not make, Eternal source and goal,
In thy long years, life's broken circle whole?
And change to praise the cry of a lost soul?'''

AND ONLY WHEN THE CRY OF THAT SOUL IS CHANGED TO PRAISE, WILL THE UNIVERSE RING WITH THE FINAL SHOUT OF VICTORY.

IV.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT FROM THE STAND

POINT OF SCRIPTURE.

[Sunday evening, November 2nd, 1890.]

"All souls are mine."-EZEKIEL 18: 4.

·

Standing beneath the venerable arches of England's most notable cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the present arch-deacon Farrar, some years ago, uttered these remarkable words: "I ask you, my brethren, very solemnly, where would be the popular teaching about hell, if we calmly and deliberately erased from our English Bibles the three words 'damnation' and 'hell' and everlasting'? Yet I say unhesitatingly; I say, claiming a full right to speak with the authority of knowledge; I say with the calmest and most unflinching sense of the responsibility; I say, standing here in the sight of God and of my Savior, and, it may be, of the angels and spirits of the dead, that not one of those words ought to stand any longer in the English Bible; and that, being in our present acceptation of them, mere mistranslations, they most unquestionably will not stand in the revised version of the Bible, if the revisers have understood their duty."