Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-01-10
HELL.
Who Are In 1t, Considered by the Rev.
Ed. Il. Mitchell.

l Ed. IL. Mltchell.
| Notwithstanding the rather unsea SON.
able nature of the subject, from wealth
er standpoint, fair number of persons
assembled at the New Jerusalem for
Swedenborgian) church last evening, to
hear what the pastor, the Rev. Ed. E.
Mitchell, had to say ON the subject of
"Hell; its nature and the condition of
those who are in it,"
The reverend speaker commenced by
speaking of the antagonism recently de-
veloped to the vindictive punishment of
hell. Men wished to find some other way
to interpret the text. They hoped for q
coming of the Lord, while the. coming
had already commenced; it had been in
progress for about one hundred years; in
every department of thought there was
greater freedom; the coming of Christ
| this time would be SPIRITUAL; old dogmas
| were losing their hold upon men; the
spiritual coming of Christ was to show
men how to interpret things in a rational
| sense.
Organized wrong could not antagonize
men as it used to; all over the world the
human mind was bursting out from in
dividual thlaldrom; God is love; but love
| is law also. In the former lectures man
| had been followed to the intermediate
state, or Hades; we have seen in the in
termediate state man had been prepared;
| the judgment was in the intermediate
state; if he preferred evil there was no
power, not even divine power, that could
make him follow good; if he was good the
restraints of the world did not follow him.
Happiness is the condition of goodness,
and suffering of evil; the letters of the
scripture came to man in the manner of
appearance; like the sunrise which, while
not seen, was believed in. Freedom from
punishment did not make man good no
more than opening the doors Of a prison
would make the inmates good. God took
no pleasure in Furnishing men; he would
prevent all Suffering if he could.
No man will be in hell for failure of op-
portunities, but because he does evil,
which is hell, in preference to good,
which is heaven The body of the man
is an image of the inward man. All our
organs need to be in order, to keep us in
communication with God. Take away
the harmony of the organs, or injure his
body and you cut off communication
with the world of good The healthy
man found his reward in health; the in
| firm man in suffering. AS a spiritual
being the man was a complete organism.
God did not punish man for debauch-
cries The punishment resulted from the
disarrangement of the organs.
So it was with the mental faculties; to
be happy he must obey the laws of moral
| ity; our intellects were formed for truth,
nothing else will harmoniously fill them;
the heart was made for love; the charac-
| ter of love was happiness; morality; the
punishment consisted in the wretched ma
ture which worked evil; the penalty was
in the sin, in the miserable condition in
separable from sin as we exercise evil
thoughts the man becomes narrow and
stepped in misery
AS the good man found his reward in
happiness, so the evil man punished him
self by doing wrong. The man who
grovelled amid low thugs, who wallowed
in spiritual filth was always miserable
The evil of one man, by the law of retail
iation, stirred up the evil of other men,
So it was in heaven; the evil man
would not have pleasure in the company
of angels; sin pOverished itself; if we
brutalized ourselves and cut off the an
gelic side we perverted our lives and
made hell.
He'll did not consist in fire and brim-
stone; it was not place, but condition
formed by the lusts and burning passions
of man. 1t was not the divine love
that punished man; like the sun it was
succOr us. Then by living life of sin
ON earth, man formed the image of evil
that in the other world would retain its
al, ocfo Of CT, Tn hn ,pfn ol, l,ofn
state, before reaching the final abode,
there would be opportunities for good
and evil.
If man had not had opportunities here
he would have them there; if he had
abused his chances he will keep on doing
so. Some people imagined that this doc
trine made hell too easy; I imagine
community full of lust, avarice, hate,
malice, and evil desire-of persons pos
sessed with these attributes---e man
would arouse others against him; each
burning with the fires of internal lust;
which could but be carried out; this was
not an enjoyable life; each one preyine
on the other; the internal character made
hell wherever developed.
1t was q law Of the spiritual world that
all the surroundings were the outward
ludSc VI VIC lHWdTu splrlI. Livery evil
passion in hell would be represented by
it's outward character; even as malig-
nant passion practiced in life made the
face correspond with the evil of the
heart.
The work Of harmonizing men
would be carried on in the other world
| if the divine light should come on man
at once, it would kill him; an evil man
could not breathe the pure air of heaven;
he had no capacity for it; even as the
naked eye cannot gaze fully on the sun.
God never punished man; he was
punished in the existence of his own evil,
and by that, if the existence OF perpetual
evil was an argument against divine be-
nevolence, the same argument might be
applied to suffering here. The sensualist
cared nothing for purity; he had oppor-
tunities to do better, but would not; you
could not get the miser or dishonest man
to believe in the practice of liberality or
honesty. The fish might be taken to the
| higher air; to the pure oxygen; but it
would say, l care not for this; give me
the air can breathe; the condition / am
fitted for; so with the evil doer; he could
not be happy if taken at once from his
condition of sin; evil is not imperfect