ing the fury and cruelty with which the wicked pursue and strive to torment one another, and they have a powerful influence in quieting disorder and mitigating their sufferings. The highest angels, whose hearts are full of tenderness and mercy, delight in this service.

According to this view, hell is not an inquisition in which its inmates are tortured for what they did and believed or failed to do and believe while they lived in this world. It is not a penitentiary where the finally impenitent are imprisoned by the Lord and punished for the deeds done in the body. It is an asylum for the incurably insane, in which every provision that infinite mercy can suggest and infinite wisdom effect is provided to assuage their misery and make their hopeless condition as endurable as possible. Their sufferings are terrible, beyond the power of words to describe. But no more restraint is put upon them than is necessary to prevent them in their madness from inflicting severer torments upon one another, and disturbing the peace of the righteous. They are not deprived of a delight or comfort by the Lord. No pain or sorrow or suffering is inflicted by him. They could not breathe the atmosphere of heaven; it would suffocate them. They could not bear its light; it would blind them. They could not endure the society of the pure and wise; it would be utterly repugnant to every principle of their nature and a horrible torment to them. The condition of the wicked is as perfect a testimony as the blessedness of the righteous, to the divine declaration, "The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." The whole of sacred Scripture when correctly understood testifies to these principles of the Lord's government of the finally impenitent, and his provision for their wants. The universal truth is constantly implied and plainly taught that "evil slays the wicked." Every one is finally judged and rewarded according to his work. It is true that the wicked are turned into hell. But they are turned into it by their own evil passions and false principles. They make hell and carry it with them wherever they go. A society of wicked men and women is a hell, whether in this or the spiritual world. They dwell in darkness, because they love darkness rather than light.

Darkness in the spiritual world is ignorance and error. The terms that are generally employed to reveal the condition of the finally impenitent are now regarded as symbols of the truth and not literal facts. No intelligent Christian believes that the wicked are thrust into a lake of fire and brimstone by an angry God, tossing on its billows, writhing in agony, consuming but never consumed, while the Lord by a mere act of mercy could relieve them from their torment in a moment. The fire that consumes and torments them is their own lusts. "The worm that never dies" is the false principles which constantly lead them into torment. They think God is angry with them because he is opposed to all the evil and false principles from which they act. They judge him and estimate all good by their love of dominion and their efforts to subject him and all human beings to their own power. They are out of the divine order, they array themselves against the mighty currents of the divine power by which all things and all beings are created and subsist, and consequently all the divine forces smite them. The Lord has not changed, he causes the sun of his love and wisdom to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends the rain of his truth on the just and the unjust.

Such is a brief statement of the belief of the New Church concerning retribution. I have not attempted to do much more than state some general principles and illustrate them by facts which are well known to all intelligent men. These principles are unfolded in the writings of the New Church in manifold ways, and confirmed by the nature of the human mind and all the Lord's methods of creating, punishing, and rewarding men, so far as they come within our own observation. They commend themselves to our reason; they are in perfect accord with the revelations which the Lord has made of himself in his word and works when understood; they present him to us as a being of infinite love and wisdom, whose only purpose is to create human beings capable of receiving and reciprocating his love, of being enlightened by his wisdom, and blessed by a life according to his commandments.

Chamney Files

CHAPTER XIX.

UNDER THE LAWS OF HIS OWN MORAL NATURE, AND BY HIS OWN VOLITION, MAN FIXES HIS OWN DESTINY.

Revulsion from the Harsh Views Formerly Held on this Subject.-Retribution now Dressed in a Different but more Credible Costume.-Conservative Theologians forced to Admit that Children and "a Great Multitude" dying Ignorant of Christ, are now Praising Him in Heaven.—The Countless Myriads of Heathen no longer Deemed to be Hopeless Candidates for Perdition.-Growing Recognition of Christian Consciousness in the Development of Religious Doctrine.-Christ the Leader and Inspirer of this Progressive and more Benign Teaching.-Fiendish Sentiments quoted from Thomas Aquinas, Edwards, Hopkins, Knapp, and other Accepted Exponents.-The Moral Law of Cause and Effect, Ordained by God, is Universal and Immutable, so that it is Necessarily "Ill with the Wicked and Well with the Righteous."-The Startling and Impressive Message from God to All.-It is not alone a Revelation," but a Positive Natural Law, from which None can Escape.-Its Adaptedness as an Appeal to Man's Conscience, as the Most Urgent Motive to Avoid Sin and Follow after Righteousness.

By Rev. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., Pastor of the First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio.

It seems to be generally believed that the opinion of the Church with respect to retribution has been greatly changed within the last century. As to the forms by which the doctrine is set forth this belief is well founded. It is not very long since hell was universally supposed to be a literal lake of fire and brimstone, and the physical sufferings of the lost were depicted in flaming colors on the canvas of the popular evangelist. I remember hearing Elder Knapp describe the writhings of the lost in that pit of flame; and it is impossible to forget the extremely realistic rhetoric in which he pointed out the damned crawling up the sides of the crater, and the devils standing with pitchforks on the edges to fling them in again. These picturesque delineations were delivered, with perfect assurance, to a crowded audience of Christians, of which I, as a small