The Doctrine of an Everlasting Hell.—I cannot conceive of anything as everlasting but God. Everything has its end at some time, or in some way; but God is without end. All but God is subject to change. He, our good Father, is unchangeable and everlasting. The Great King is the Sovereign over all,—heaven, and earth, and all the hosts thereof. If there is a place called hell, it must be before His omnipresence; for there is nothing that is not known, and seen, and made by God. He could not create an everlasting hell to torture his weak, frail children. Whatever He has created is for their good.
Heaven and earth, with all their wonders, unite to contribute to the welfare of God’s creatures.
Everything that lies within, without, around, or above us, speaks of God’s unfailing love towards his children. He has placed us under his moral government, the violation of whose laws brings suffering. The same is true also in our relation to the laws of Nature. When we break them we suffer for it; and the suffering is conditional.
I put my hand into a blazing fire, and immediately I feel the effect of my imprudence. I then take my hand back from the fire, and resolve not to put it there again. If I try the experiment again, the same suffering is inevitable.
The All-wise Father has so ordered, that the violation of his laws, physical or moral, will bring suffering;—suffering produces repentance;—repentance will beget reformation; and reformation will meet the approbation and smile of God. Such are his laws, and they must do their mission. He punishes to cure, and not to kill. “He wounds for his mercy’s sake,—He wounds to heal.”
“The parable of the Prodigal Son,” verifies this truth. When the son wanted to have his portion given to him, the good father knew well what would be his lot, by and by. Yet he did not interfere with his wish, for he had made him a free moral agent. The child leaves his paternal abode, and spends his portion, his energies, in riotous living. He becomes poor, has nothing to eat, and takes care of swine;—the very menial business in Oriental countries. His sufferings create repentance in his bosom, and he starts for his father’s home. What did the father do? Did he say, “Go from me forever, and live in everlasting misery?” No. He is too good, too loving to say that. He comes out of the house, welcomes the wanderer back, clothes him with the best robe, and makes a feast. In the Bible there is mention of everlasting fire; but the words are not in meaning according to what they sound. If they were literally true, they would falsify Christ’s “parable of the prodigal son.” It is a common Oriental way of describing the state of unhappiness. When a boy I read these things in Hindoo books. “It is said, Jom, or Death, has his angels, who dip sinners in boiling oil. They fix large hooks in their throats and drag them on some high places. They cause them to embrace pillars of fire, and finally thrust them in ‘Nonuck Coondoo,’ or pit of dirt, in which ‘kit’ (a worm) dieth not.”
I am told that, taking the words of the Bible in a literal sense, the Christian people believe in many absurd things, and teach them. For instance, in a Sunday-school book, there is a question like the following: “Where do the wicked go?” “To hell,” is the answer. All right. “What kind of a place is hell?” “It is dark, and there the worm dieth not, and there is fire unquenchable.” Now our common sense springs up to protest against this unfortunate statement; declaring that where there is fire unquenchable there cannot be dark at all. Such a fire would light hell so splendidly as to enable its inmates to pick up the very sand off its floor,—of course, if there be any.
Heaven and hell are within our own breasts. We experience the joys of one and the pangs of the other. When we perform our duties faithfully, and “love our neighbor as ourselves,” we then commune with God and his angels; and that is what constitutes the joy of heaven. On the other hand, when we neglect our duty,—seek after carnal lust,—defy God and man by our thoughts and actions, and thereby bring sorrows, the hatred of the world, and remorse of conscience—we make hell within us. A pure and contrite heart is heaven, and a heart that loves self exclusively, is hell.
Thus I have, very poorly but sincerely, attempted to give my reasons for not believing in the Trinity,—the total depravity of human nature, and everlasting torture in hell. To me they are unscriptural and absurd doctrines. I do not trouble myself with mysteries, but receive the simple words of Christ as my all-sufficient law, of which, “love to God, and love to man,” is the essential part.
My Christianity begins where Christ opens his life, and ends where he closes it. In his words I find my duty towards, and my relation to, God, clearly defined. In Christ, I find a perfect humanity, and a safe Guide to liberty, holiness, and love. Skilful orthodox ministers, who are used to teaching those who are willing to hold their doctrines, may pick apart these simple things which I have said. It will give them no pleasure that I, a young man, have come out of the dark ways of my people, and have found what rejoices my heart in Christ and in his God, because I do not and cannot take with my blessed Christian faith the opinions of the orthodox. I know what those opinions are; I knew them before I gave up Hindooism, and they prevented me for some time from finding light and joy in the Gospel. I know, too, what many of my own countrymen, who have the best minds and who have outgrown Hindooism, think of the views offered them by orthodox missionaries. Intelligent Hindoos think that what these missionaries wish them to believe, as a part of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, is very like some of the worst things in their own religion, which made them doubt it and throw it off. I know my countrymen will never be converted to these orthodox views, though some of the missionaries are good men and work hard. Their doctrines, which we do not find when we read the Bible ourselves, stand badly in the way of their success. Intelligent Hindoos who throw off their religion, generally become what are called here, “Infidels,” or “Deists.” When a Hindoo gives up the superstitious practices of my country, all the religion which he keeps is by clinging to, and loving and trying to obey, some beautiful lessons of piety and morality scattered over his sacred books, which are just like the best things in the Old Testament. The orthodox missionary tells these Hindoos that their sacred books are all “humbug.” The missionary is ignorant what is in those books. At the same time he tells my countrymen that all the Old Testament was written by God. My countrymen will never change their religion for “orthodoxy.”