The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1878-01-17

BY e.. B. MURRAY &
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is THERE AN ENDLESS HELLG
The Doctrine Zealonsly Rejected and De
/ * nounceds
From he London Christian World, ;Nor. q
DR.. Farrar, Canono of Westminster, an.
lauthor of the most popular ssLife %
Christ" of onr time read and admired o
Hate years in thousands of Christian fam
lIilies-hss been preaching at the Able!
| on subjects relating to the future life
Both last Sunday and Sunday week tht
minister was crowded with people to Lis
| ten to these discourses. The throng wa
SO great that many had to stand through
Tout the services. Our shorthand writel
has provided us with verbatim reports Of
both sermons, but our space is 30 preoc'
fcupied day with other matters that We
can only give q summary of them.
gIns his first discourse, based upon !
Peter, w., 6, DR.. Farrar discussed the
subject Of the future punishment of the
|ungodly. I'm reply to questions which he
assumed his audience to be asking, and
which he said they had the fullest right
to ask, and which it was the bounden
duty Of ministers of the Gospel, as far as
epossible;Mto answer, he, for one, iniall
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 tof an
answer, il was because he believed il to
sbe Gods viii that no other should be
possible. Those who took loose copjec-
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
iScripturaI Argument inferences out OF
the. narrow aperture ofsingle texts, those
who talked with the glib self -complacency
of an siignorance which calls itself knowl-
edge, as though they had been; admitted
into what, with nconscious hlasphemy,
they called the Council Chamber of the
Trinity-theY, perhaps, might speak
readily Of fire and birthstone, and might
feel the consolatory glow Of q personal
security as; they dilated upon the, awful
ness and fnalityi of the sufferings OF the
damned. But those whose faith must
have q broader basis than follow repre-
sentstions@than the ambign nousness of
opposing texts-those who grIeye over
the; dark shadows flung by human theolo.
ga,iians over God 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 direct voice in these great
decisions, they would not be so ready to
snatch God Is! thunder into wretched and
feeble hands. They: would lay their
mouths insthe dust rather than make sad
the hearts which God had not made sad.
They take into, account: the grand, princi.
ples which dominate through Scripture
no less than its isolated expression and,
undeterred by the base and. feeble; notion
that virtue would ,be impossible without
the horrors Of an endless hell, they would
declare then 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. gsd
After this eloquent introduction the
preacher proceeded to state what, after
wears Of thought on the subject, he be-
iIieyed. and what he knew to be the, belief
of ofsmuItitudes, and Of yearly increasing
multitndes, .of the wisest and the most
learned in the church. Proceeding to
examine the subject in detail, he first set
forth the popular notions of hell to be
found in the early theologians, In Dante,
in Milton, and yin;t tShakespe citing
some Of the most terrific passages de-
scriptiye of sendless torture. Happily,
the thoughts and hearts of men were
often far gentlerl and snobler than their
creeds. customs and traditions. 1t was
only when these topics were treated by
narrow-minded and loIeless hearts that
they were, seen in; all their intolerable.
ghastliness. He knew nothing so calcu-.
lated to make the whole soul revolt with
loathing from every doctrine of religion
as the easy complacency with which some
cheerfully accept the belief that they are
living and moving in the midst of mil
lions doomed irreversibly TO everlasting
,perdition. 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-
.tion into auathemas and all but universal
;perdition. IF we were not unaffected
when the destitute perish with hunger,
or the dying agonize in pain, was there
any human being worthy Of the dignity
of a human being who did not revolt and
sicken at the notion of g world of worm
and flame? fist. Paul again and again
flung from him, with a "God forbid, = the
conclusions of an apparently Irresistible
logic; we surely, who had no irresistible
logic against us in this matter, but only
in great part spiritual selfshness aud inn
npenetrable traditions, do we not, in the
high name Of outraged conscience,
of humanity-nay, in the far higher
name of the God who loves US, of the
Saviour who died for Us, of the Holy
Ghost who enlightenss sus-do we not hurl
from MS representations Of. 8 doctrine so
horrible that every nerve and fbreof our
intellectual, moral and spiritual life re-
volts at it? Ignorance may, if it will
make q fetish of such q doctrine; phari-
saism may write it: broad upon,its philac-
teries;l hatred may inscribe it.instead OF
Holiness to the Lord but here, in, the
presence Of so many living, and in this
vast mausoleum of the glorious dead
here amid the silent memorials of the
men of fame and the fathers who begat
us, of whom many, though not saints, were
yet noble, though erring men, and whom
though they and we alike shall certainly
suffer, and suffer bitterly, both here and
hereafter, the penalty Of unrepented sin,
we cannot and will not think of as con-
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