New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1895-12-04
FUTURE PUNISHMENT.
Carleton Brown Gives Ten Reasons For
Not Believing in He'll.

Reasons Why I do not Believe in Hell.'
The audience was large and interested,
consisting not only of liberals but also
of representatives of all denominations,
and the speakers remarks naturally took
deep effect.
The primary reason for not believing
in eternal punishment was that there is
no sufficient evidence for it. The Bible
certainly does not afford it. In the Pen
tateuch the institution is not mentioned
in single paragraph. 1t is only alluded
to after the exile into Persia, and it is
plain that it was adopted from the teach
ings of the conquerors who were poly
theists and idolators. The idea contra
diets that of the infinite love of God ,and,
notwithstanding it is a part of nearly all
creeds, there are few people to-day who
actually accept it, and all believe that
an easy escape the refrom is provided for.
This latter statement makes it easy to
understand why the theory of eternal
punishment fails as deterrent of crime
and why during the middle ages, when
the doctrine of hell was painted in the
strongest colors, vice and crime were un-
usually prevalent. Even today statistics
prove that a very large portion of our
criminals, at least So per cent, are ortho-
dox believers, while hardly one per cent
are what we know as infdels.
The hell dogma is inconsequent and
cruel, because it leaves to accident wheth-
er sinner is to punished or not. Sup
pose the case of man who is in that
miserable condition in which a word of
kindness or an act of charity may lift
him to better life; he goes to another
and asks for support; not receiving it, he
continues in his life Of degradation and
dies in the gutter, while the other, per
haps no better than the unfortunate,
makes use of escape from eternal woe
which is preached in the church. The
first one becomes fuel fol the eternal bon
fire and the other enters into everlasting
joy. In one way the letter was the means
Of his fellow beings downfall, but that
makes no difference, for at the eleventh
hour he has availed himself of forgive
ness.
Experience teaches US that no criminal
is so bad that he cannot, by an applica-
ton of the right treatment, be reformed,
and the time will certainly come when
criminals will not be sentenced for fixed
term in prison, but will be held there
as a sick man is in the hospital, until he
IS cured and freed from his vicious and
criminal inclinations. No one is abso-
lutely incorrigible and that wor.l will in
time be blotted from the English Ian
guage.
The speaker contended that every one
receives the punishment tor his wrong
doings in this world. Every bad deed
puts its stamp on the man, sets him back
in his career and estranges him from his
natural destiny. This idea of punish
ment, he held, was consistent with natur-
al; that of the orthodox was unnatural
full and unjust,
The human race. he said, was linked
| together as if by an inseparable and un-
breakable chain, and it is our duty to
work for the moral growth of the race
more than for the salvation of ones self.
A man, who by selishness, egotism and
| bigotry looks out only for himself, is a
failure, and that's why the great teacher
Says that he who loses his life shall find
it and he who finds it shall lose it. This
thought, work for the race, has permeat-
ed all really great men, and the most far
seeing men Of this country, as for inst
ance the great poets, have all abandoned
the belief in hell.
The Review hopes that the public, of
all denominations, will continue to at
tend these liberal meetings if more should
be held. The Roman proverb, s'let the
other side be heard too.'' ought to be ap-
piled, if at all, to religious discussions.
During discussion over religious liberty
in country that boasted of an estab-
lished church it was given as d reason
for not allowing the discussion that it
might injure the church of the state. In
answer it was remarked that if the church
was so weak that it could not stand with
out artificial props, then let it fall. And
so it should be with our present religious
denominations. They ought not to be
afraid to listen to the other side. Be.
sides the liberal preachers never use ex-
pressions giving offence to ''otherwise
believers"