Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1911-07-18

specially to Bible Students, and it we
report. His text was, Where their
worm dieth not and the IRE is not
quenched" Mark tx, 40. The speaker
said
There are other and much more beau
tiful topics than the one l have chosen
for this occasion. Nevertheless, Hand
some is that handsome does" This
text has stood in the way of Gods
people for centuries, and still continues
in the way of many of them. To such
it proves the Almighty Creator to be
most unkind one, most un-Fatherly
one, view the matter as we will. Some
say, IOvelessly and illogically, that God
provided from before the foundation
of the world a great geheHHG of fire,
torture, suffering and that all man
kind were doomed on account of father
Adams transgression, but that through
Jesus death arrangement was made
by which the small number who walk
in His footsteps in the narrow way"
may escape this awful eternity.
Others say, not so; God is love, and
worms are matters of necessity which
His love cannot overcome, because, by
some slip of unwisdom in the begin
ming, or by some lack of power since,
the Almighty is unable to do better
than to save the mere handful and to
allow the great mass of mankind to
suffer endless torture in the fire that
the worm will never die.
The Great Teacher Misunderstood.
These words from the lips of our
Master, the Great Teacher, have been
grievously misunderstood. The teach
ing of our Protestant childhood was
to the effect that only the sanity elect
would go to heaven and that others
would not only lose heaven, but gain
an eternal life in torment. Thus our
text was understood to portray what
practically the whole world of man
kind would be compelled to endure.
This hell was pictured to our child
hood minds from outside the Bible as
heated to a white heat. If we ex-
pressed wonder or surprise that any
creature could endure such conditions
so long the answer was that God
would exercise his omnipotent power
to make us fire-prOOf and pain-Sensitive.
Some theolOgians of the Thomas q
Kempis school of thought went so far
as to picture the poor creatures In
their sufferings and to show that the
heat would form n kind of an asbestos
covering which would shield them
from a measure of it's intensity. But
those deluded theologians proceeded
to explain that these outer coverings
would crack and shell off every little
while, leaving the poor victim freshly
tender that his suffering might be the
more intense.
OF course, these theologians of the
past had their difficulty in dealing
with the worms. They could imagine
devils who would oversee the torture
as being made immune to pain by the
chief torturer, the Almighty God. But
just how to imagine the worms get
ting along in so great a heat and how
they would in any wise increase the
torture of the poor sufferers was to
many a perpleXity. But patient
thoughtfulness along these cruel and
devilish lines enabled some to formu-
late the theory that the worms would
be fiery ones, living IN fire, delighting
in f1re-worms that would bore through
the incrustations and add still fur
Their to the horrible sufferings of the
world of mankind.
Was This What Jesus Meantf
Did the Great Teacher intend that
such conclusions should be drawn
from His language? And did He stop
short of the description from reasons
of sympathy OF modesty or shame? Is
this the general teaching Of Gods
Word or has a great and terrible mis-
take been made? And have we mistak-
en- figure of speech and treated it as
literal? We erred. We misunderstood.
The Great Teacher who rebuked His
disciples, James and John, when they
desired to call fire from heaven upon
the City Of Samaria, because the peo-
pie thereof refused to sell them food
for the Master-the~ sympathetic One
who said to them, aye know not what
manner of spirit ye are of; the Son Of
man came not to destroy mems lives,
but to save them'-could that Son of
man in any wise intend to tell Us that
our great Heavenly Father had less
Of the spirit of love and Righteousness
than the two impetuous disciples?
Did He mean to intimate that while