The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1878-01-17
is THERE AN ENDLESS HElLs
The DentFino zeaionsly Rejected ana Ne.
iionnsea.
From De london Ciristian Word. Nor. %

Or. Farrar, Canon of Westminster. and
author OF the most popular "IIiiu of
Christ" OF ollr titne--read ard admired of
late years in Thousands of Christian fam.
liies-has been preaching at the Abbey
on subjects relating to the future life,
Both last Sunday and Sunday week the
minister was crowded with people to lis
ten to these discourses. The throng was
so great that ma0y had TO atand through.
out the services. Our short-haud writer
has provided US with verbatim reports of
] both sermons, but our space is 80 preoc.
cupied to-day with other matters that we
can only give summary Of them.
| In his frat discourse, based upon
Peter, iv., 8, DR.. Farrar discussed Che
subject of the future punishment Of the
ungodly. In reply to questions which he
| assumed his audience to be asking, and
which he said they had tho fullest right
to ask, and which it was the bounden
duty Of ministers of the Gospel, on far as
possible, to answer, he, for one, in all
deep humility, yet always asking God for
fearless courage and perfect honesty,
would try to give such answers as he
could. If it were but the fragment Of an
answer, it was because he believed it to
be Gods will that no other should be
possible. Those who took loose coniec.
lures for established certainties, those
who cared more for authority than for
reason and conscience, those who. pre-
tended to dignity with the name of
Scriptural Argument inferences out of
| the narrow aperture of single texts, those
who talked With the glib self cor. .rr!aseneyy
of an ignorance which calls itself knowl-,
edge, as though they had been admitted
| into what, with unconscious blasphemy,
they called tho Council Chamber of the
Trinity-they, perhaps, might speak
readily of fire and birthstone, and might
feel the consolatory glow Of personal
security as they dilated upon the awful,
ness and finality of the sufferings OF the
damned. But those whose faith must
have broader basis than hollow repre-
sentations-than the ambiguousness of
| opposing tsSS..ss ttssS.s- -t.h.ose whn griere over
the dark shadows flung by human theolo-
gians over Gods light, those who believed
that reason and conscience and expert
ence--no less than the Scripture-are no
less the books of God, and that they, too,
must have q direct voice in these great
decisions, they would not be so ready to
snatch Gods thunder into wretched and
feeble hands. They would ley their
mouths in the dust rather than make sad
| the hearts which God had net made sad.
| They take into account the grand princi.
| Piles which dominate through Scripture
| no less than its isolated expressions; and,
undeterred by the base and feeble nation
that virtue wonla be impossible without
the horrors Of an endless. hell, they would
declare th6ar trust that even after death,
through the infinite mercy of the loving
Father, the dead would be alive again,
| and multitudes, at any rate, of the lost
| be found. -.pd
After this eloquent introduction the
preacher proceeded to state what, after
years. of thought on the subject, he be-
lieved, and what he knew to be the belief
Of multitudes, and of yearly increasing
.nultitudes, Of the wisest and the most
learned in the church; Prcceeding 20
examine the subject in detail. he first set
forth the popular notions of hell to be
| found in the early theologians, in Dante,
some of the most terrific passages de-
scriptive of endless torture. Happily,
the thoughts and hearts of men were
often far gentler and notlsr than their
creeds, customs and traditions. 1t was
only when these topics were treated by
narrow minded and loveless hearts that
thov yerA sean in all their intolerable
ghastliness. He knew nothing go calcu-
| lated to make the whole eoul revolt with
| loathing from every doctrine of religion
as the ensy complacency with which some
cheerfully accept the belief that they are
| living and moving in the midst of mill
| lions doomed irreversiblv TO everlasting
perditior. No language. could be stern
enough to reprobate the manner IN which
many elder brothers of the Prodigal had
] turned Gods Gospel of plenteous redemp-
/ lion into auathemas and ali bnt universal
| perdition. IF we were not unaffected
when the destitute perish with hunger.
or the dying agoniye IN pain, was there
any human being worthy of the dignity
of human being who did not revolt and
sicken at the notion of q wo-ld of worm
and hame7 If St. Paul again and again
aung from him, with "God forbid, the
conclusions of an apparently Irresistible
logic, we sufely, WHO had no irresistible
logic against us in this matter, but only
in great part spiritual aelfishness and i'm
pc letrable traditions, do we NOT, In th,
high name Of outraged con; eience
4 of humanity--nay, in the far highe
name of the Gdh .Who lover us, of thi
Saviour who died forj us, of the Fol,
Ghost who eniightsas ns-do We not hur
from us representations Of doctrine 81
). horrible that every nerve and fibre of OH
intellectual, moral and spiritual life re
i volta of it? ignorance may, IL IL will
Il make q fetish of such doctrine; phari
saism may write it broad upon Its philaC
teries; hatred may inscribe it instead o
Holiness to the Lord but here, in th
/. presence of so many living, and In thi
vast mausolenm of the glorious dead
} here amid the silent memor;ale of Oh
men of fame and the fathers who bega
ius, of whom many, though pot saints, wer
yet noble, though erring men, and whor
. Though they and we alike shall certainl
I lsuffer, and suffer bitterly, both here an
hereafter, the penuity OF uIiTossa 81: q:
: 1--we cannot and will not think of % cor
ldemned to unutterable torsures D>' ire
. yossibie DEGREES. "I repudissa,. se1
!. claimed the preacher, "theas Crude an
, ghastly travesties of the holy and aWst
. will OF God. i arraign them as mere
Z llesaly ignorant. / impeach them as
D falsehood againsts Chr1st's unlyersl
4 redemption. Il denounce them as o bia
! phemy against Gods exceeding and etc
!. nal love. More acceptable, I tam vel
{ sure, than the rigid and most unccmpr,
r missing orthodoxy of all the Pharisel
8 have ever judged their brethren ein'
{ time began-more acceptable by. far
y Him who, on the cross, prayed for ii
q murdefsr5, and who died that they mig
:, ,;;y1e-::s.o:e i've mere aecentahle. I say. than q
f delight,which amid deluge Of ruin huI
: the plank on which alone Itself 10 saye
:: wonld be the noble and trembling pie