We must notice also that God, who is said to love righteousness, can never crush out righteousness in any-human soul. There is no one so utterly degraded as to be without one sign of good. Among the lowest and vilest of our population, we find beautiful instances of kindly feeling and generous help. Can any woman be more degraded than she who only values her womanhood as a means of gain, who drinks, fights, and steals? Let those who have been among such women say if they have not been cheered sometimes by a very ray of the light of God, when the most. degraded has shown kindness to an equally degraded sister, and when the very gains of sin have been purified by being; poured into the lap of a suffering and dying companion. Shall love and devotion, however feeble, unselfishness and sympathy, however transitory in their action, shall these stars of heaven be quenched in the blackness of the pit of hell? If it be so, then, verily, God is not the "righteous. Lord who loveth righteousness."
But we cannot leave out of our impeachment of hell that it injures man, as much as it degrades his conceptions of God. It cultivates selfishness and fear, two of his basest passions. There has scarcely perhaps been born into the world this century a purer and more loving soul than that of the late John Keble, the author of the "Christian Year." Yet what a terrible effect this belief had on him; he must cling to his belief in hell, because otherwise he would have no certainty of heaven:
"But where is then the stay of contrite hearts?
Of old they leaned on Thy eternal word;
But with the sinner's fear their hope departs,
Fast linked as Thy great name to Thee, O Lord;
That Name by which Thy faithful hope is past,
That we should endless be, for joy or woe;—
And if the treasures of Thy wrath could waste,
Thy lovers must their promised heaven forego."
That is to say in plain English: "I cannot give up the certainty of hell for others, because if I do I shall have no certainty of heaven for myself; and I would rather know that millions of my brethren should be tormented for ever, than remain doubtful about my own everlasting enjoyment." Surely a loving heart would say, instead, "O God, let us all die and remain unconscious for ever, rather than that one soul should suffer everlastingly." The terrible selfishness of the Christian belief degrades the noblest soul; the horror of hell makes men lose their self-control, and think only of their personal safety, just as we see men run wild sometimes at a shipwreck, when the gain of a minute means life. The belief in hell fosters religious pride and hatred, for all religious people think that they themselves at least are sure of heaven. If then they are going to rejoice through all eternity over the sufferings of the lost, why should they treat them with kindness or consideration here? Thus hell, becomes the mother of persecution; for the heretic, the enemy of the Lord, there is no mercy and no forgiveness. Then the saints persuade themselves that true charity obliges them to persecute, for suffering may either save the heretic himself by forcing him to believe, or may at least scare others from sharing his heresy, and so preserve them from eternal fire. And they are right, if hell is true. Any means are justifiable which may save man from that horrible doom; surely we should not hesitate to knock a man down, if by so doing we preserved him from throwing himself over a precipice.
Belief in hell takes all beauty from virtue; who cares for obedience only rendered through fear? No true love of good is wrought in man by the fear of hell, and outward respectability is of little worth when the heart and the desires are unpurified. We may add that the fear of hell is a very slight practical restraint; no man thinks himself really bad enough for hell, and it is so far off that every one intends to repent at the last and so escape it. Far more restraining is the proclamation of the stern truth that, in the popular sense of the word, there is no such thing as the "forgiveness of sins;" that as a man sows, so shall he reap, and that broken laws avenge themselves without exception.
Belief in hell stifles all inquiry into truth by setting a premium on one form of belief, and by forbidding another under frightful penalties.. "If it be true, as it is true, that all who do not believe this shall perish everlastingly, then, I ask, is it not worth while to believe?" So says a clergyman of the Church of England. Thus he presses his people to accept the dogma of the Deity of Jesus, not because it is-true, but because it is dangerous to deny it. And this-difficulty meets us every day. If we urge inquiry, we are told "it is dangerous;" if we suggest a difficulty, we are told "it is safer to believe;" and so this doctrine of hell chains down men's faculties and palsies their intellects, and they dare not seek for truth at all, lest he who is Truth should cast them into hell for it.
It may perhaps be said by many that I have attacked this dogma with undue vehemence, and with excessive warmth. I attack it thus, because I know the harm that it is doing, because it saddens the righteous heart and clouds the face of God. Only those who have realised hell, and realising it, have believed in it, know the awful shadow with which it darkens the world. There are many who laugh at it, but they have not felt its power, and they forget that a dogma which is only ludicrous to them is weighing heavily on many a tender heart and sensitive brain. Hell drives many mad: to others-it is a life-long horror. It pales the sunlight with its lurid flames; it blackens the earth with the smoke of its torment; it makes the Devil an actual presence; it transforms God into an enemy, eternity into an awful doom. It takes the spring out of all pleasures; it poisons all enjoyments; it spreads gloom over life, and enshrouds the tomb in horror unspeakable. Only those who have felt the anguish of this nightmare know what it is to wake up into the sunlight, and find it is only a disordered dream of the darkness; they only know the glorious liberty of heart and soul, with which they lift up smiling faces to meet the smile of God, when they can say from the depths of their glad hearts, "I believe that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all; I believe that all mankind is safe, cradled in the everlasting arms."
ON INSPIRATION
THERE is a certain amount of difficulty in defining the word Inspiration: it is used in so many different senses by the various schools of religious thought, that it is almost necessary to know the theological opinions of the speaker before being quite sure of his meaning when he talks of a book as being inspired. In the halcyon days of the Church, when faith was strong and reason weak, when priests had but to proclaim and laymen but to assent, Inspiration had a distinct and a very definite meaning. An inspired man spoke the very words of God: the Bible was perfect from the "In the beginning" of Genesis to the "Amen" of Revelation: it was perfect in science, perfect in history, perfect in doctrine, perfect in morals. In that diamond no flaw was to be seen; it sparkled with a spotless purity, reflecting back in many-coloured radiance the pure white light of God. But when the chemistry of modern science came forward to test this diamond, a murmuring arose, low at first, but irrepressible. It was scrutinised through the microscope of criticism, and cracks and flaws were discovered in every direction; then, instead of being enshrined on the altar, encircled by candles, it was brought out into the searching sunlight, and the naked eye could see its imperfections. Then it was tested anew, and some bold men were heard to whisper, "It is no diamond at all, God formed in ages past; it is nothing but paste, manufactured by man;" and the news passed from mouth to mouth, until the whisper swelled into a cry, and many voices echoed, "This is no diamond at all." And so things are to-day; the battle rages still; some maintain their jewel is perfect as ever, and that the flaws are in the eyes that look at it; some reluctantly allow that it is imperfect, but still consider it a diamond; others resolutely assert that, though valuable for its antiquity and its beauty, it is really nothing but paste.