The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1878-01-31
FUTURE

What Beecher BeIievcs--Bis Views
Changed Within Three Years.
While Henry Ward Beecher was in
Boston last week he was interviewed
by a representative of the New York
Herald in rogacd to his views on future
punishment, Ill., attributed Il change
in his views to some articles by his bro
ther, Edward Bcecher, on the History
of Opinions on Future R%etribution,
published about three years ago. He
added:
81 hold, in brief, as strongly as ever
to the doctrines of retribution--that
right and wrong are not transient in
their nature; they are eternal. | hold
that obedience and disobedienCe will
forever produce their corresponding
pleasure or pain. held that if; in the
life to come, men persist in the viola
ton of the laws Of their being, they
| will unquestiOnably suffer pain ana
penalty; but there is no evidence what
! ever that they will, and there are
many prescriptions that they will not.
| do not think that it can be shown to
be a Scriptural doctrine that probation
closes with death. In another life |
can conceive that the experience Of this
life, which, by reason Of mans physi3-
al environments and social influences,
has not wrought reformation or virtue,
may yet in another sphere and under
more favorable circumstances bring
men to Il very much higher platform
and standpoint of conduct and charac-
ter. We have reason to suppose that
pain and suffering which, in this
world, are of an educating nature, will
have a stronger educating force hereaf-
ter, and that they will be c~on.cntcd'as
long as there is hope of bcnelitia them.
But on all this subject | would say,
first, that probation does not close with
death; second, that the end and aim of
%rctributiOn is, in the first instance, the
reform of the individual and the safety
around about him. The continuance
Of suilcring.aft it is hopeless in re-
spect to the individual and needless in
respect to society is simply cruelty,
and | cannot conceive of any man of Il
deeply moral and reflective nature who
would bring himself to believe that
God win bring into life, as he has myr-
lads which utterly outrun al, compu-
tation, under circumstances in which
they not only have 10 help whatsoever
to effect moral growth, but where all
their surroundings are adverse and pre-
verse, and allow them to continue I'M
der such known conditions, to repro
duce generations innumerablc, and
then to place them in n great hereafter
where the principal feature is suffering
and where suffering has ceased to have
any moral benefit, and so continue
them there forever and forever. This
is to create a department. Of the uni
verse for the purposes SIMPLY of suffer-
ing; but needless suffering is cruelty,
and the being who intluts needless
suffering Is tyrannical."
He claimed thlt there had been n
greaG modification Of lie iefin orthodox
churches, that the old meaning attach
ed to ''eyerla sting" eternal" &C.,
woull not bear the test of modern
scholarship, though unlettered readers
of the New Testament might mistake
the sense Ct texts just as the Jews did
those IN the Old Testament relating to
Messiah. As to this position regarding
the Congregational Church, lie said:1
MY sympathy is with tand Iindivid-
ually hold the body Of doctrines that
belongs to the Congregational Church
es of the world; and ! claim that no
doctrine is fundamental to the forma-
ton Of Christian character. A man
may set aside a doctrine that is fuuda-
mental to Il system, and | hold that he
to have liberty TO do SO. There
are many doctrines, az stated by Call
vim, that | reject aud thousands Of Cal
whistle ministers reject, and yet they
are in communion with the orthodox
C%alvinistic Churches, If | denied the
fact Of sin or the desert Of sin, if ! de-
MED the divinity of Christ or the atone
nent, can conceive that men might
ny further connection with the
congregational associations as inGXpc-
lent But a. as to the doctrines Of
'%infulncss end its reality Of it, the di-