Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1878-02-22

FRIDAY MORNlNG. FEB. Y, 1878.
HE'LL!
Last week we gave compilation of the
views of nearly all the religious denomi-
nations as expressed by their ministers re-
garding the existence aud character of
place of future punishment. 1t was quite
lengthy but we do not apologize for the
space given; it is a far more personal mat
ter than even the wheat market or the sill
yer bill. To a generation that will, when
travelling, hunt town over for the best
hotel to sleep at, the question where they
shallrest at the endof this, the longest of all
Journeys must appeal very strongly, and it
is as natural for mortal to take sides on
it as it is to be a partizan in any other
matter of general interest To newspaper
men. who as class, are noted for being
neither very good nor very lad, who know
too much of the pulpit to preachers and
too much of the world to be sinners, and
who views things more in the light OF
philosophy which is forced on them than
in the gloomy twilight of fanaticism, which
is a matter of painful education, the ques-
ton comes up solely on its merits. They
are very disinterested judges too, seeing
that while the world would like very much
for a journalist to tell them where they
are going to, they don't care fig about
knowing where the journalist is going to.
Having decided then, that we are disin-
terested judges mem. con. and having care
fully read what all sides have to say and
feeling, in addition thereto, the greatest
certainty that there is no one at present
in the world who is able from personal ex-
perience to contradict us, we shall pro-
coed.
Leaving the divine teaching out of the
question altogether, every man must feel
that there is hell to which some other
man in the nature of things, in the fulfill
ment of the laws of order which govern
this planet, must go. 1t is not only a
military necessity" as an indignant
clergyman has rem arked, but social ne
cessity, and there are great many people
in the world who are daily fitting their
lives to such a place, and who would be
very much out Of place if they got to a
better one. No one suffers more pangs
than the ill-trained boor in refined society,
and the ideal heaven would be just as I'M
fitted for the material sinner. If the
Creators plan for the existence here and
hereafter of man, which include his birth,
growth in stature and wisdom, as we see
daily under our observation, has not some
tremendous gap in it, some totally unex-
pected turning aside from the straight
line, some ugly dent in its roundness, then
there is some suffering ahead of wicked
lives in the future. There is no more
reason for demanding exemption from it
in some other world than there is III this;
indeed, there is less, for we come into this
world without preparation or opportunity
for selecting our path, while we go into
the next after having had set before us by
the Great Teacher most admirable lesson,
with the privilege of exercising our judge
ment on it's value and the propriety of fol-
Lowing it. If we have led a truant life,
with all the pangs that truancy brings, we
sleep, and awake with the joyful fruits Of
an education which others velaborious-
1y earned. No reasonable man expects
such miracles as good fruits from vii
works in this life, nor good fruits from
ideness, and those who think it unreason-
able that the soul should suffer after the
change, could not find more reason in the
supposition that a mind corrupt and I'M
fitted for good associations on earth,
should become, simply because of stop
page of breath, suited to higher life The
idle apprentice of Humanity does not be-
come skilled and self-supporting work
man merely because the clock striking
noon on certain day makes him twenty
one years of age. All the logic Of GU:
earthly life paves the road to happiness Or
suffering hereafter, which will be real zed
unless human life is a m re accident-the
result of no cause, and progressing to no
effect; waif floating on the sea Of chance
And after all every man of intelligence
has passive belief in hell-for his neig
Dor. In himself he sees so much of good
purpose, so much heading towards the
right thing, however much the needle may
defect sometimes, that the idea of future
damnation is abborrent to him and even
the association with the damned is repug-
nanu. But his neighbor! All, that Is a
different matter PROFESSIONALLY for that
hypocrite there shall b. some reward, for
this man who defrauds his neighbor there
should be some punishment, surely that
liar, he thinks, should nos be suffered to es-
CAPE. And in the meantime our neigh
bors are looking at us pretty much as we
look at them. Future punishment is not
wholly the result of educat on as unbeliev-
ers contend. but rests in great measure up
on the idea of justice implanted in the
mind. If the Bible had never been writ
was screw loose somewhere if rascality
flou.ished and died unpunished in this
world. 1t is true that the proposition that
it is to consist of material fire has seemed
so to jar with the plan Of the Creator, so
far made evident to men, that many minds
revolt from it. But that there is no tor
aure of the mind equal to physical torture
is great mistake. No reader of psychol-
ogy need be told the mind can suffer equal
" with the body. The sudden arrest of
the qualification of morbid appetities at
once establishes torture in the mind that
no physical torture can excel. The drunk
ard will tell you this. Nations often
plunge into the hell of war to get rid of
the oppression of a mere idea He'll is not
such new thing. We have it on earth
and there is no reason we should not have
it after the earth has passed away. Every