The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1912-05-29

People Pulpit: Where their worn
aieth not and their fire is not quench-
ed."-Mark ix, 4.
These words from the lips Of our
Master, the Great Teacher, have beer
grievousIy misunderstood. The teach.
Ing Of our Protestant childhood was e
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 tormen. Thus ON
text was understood 10 portray what
practically the whole world of mankind
would be compelled to endure. This
hell was pictured to our childhood
minds from outside the Bible as heat
ed to a white heat. If we expressed
wonder or surprise that any human
creature could endure such conditions
so long the answer was that God would
exercise his omnipotent power to make
us ire-proof and pain sensitive. Some
theologians Of the Thomas A, Kempis
school of thought went SO far as to
picture the poor creatures in their suf-
ferings and to show that the heat
would form a kind Of an asbestos COW
ering which would shield them from a
measure of it's intensity. But those de-
luded 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.
CT course, these theologians of the
past had their difficulty In dealing with
the worms. They could imagine deXils
who would oversee the torture as being
made immune to pain by the chief tor
turer. the Almighty God. But just how
to imagine the worms getting along in
30 great a heat and how they would in
any wise increase the torture OF the
poor sufferers was to many a perplex-
ity. But patient thoughtfulness along
these cruel and devilish lines enabled
some to formulate the theory that the
worms would be fiery ones, living in
FIRE, delfghting in fire-worms that
would bore through the incrustations
and add still further to the horrible
sufferings of the world Of mankind.
Was This What Jesus Meant?
Did the Great Teacher intend that
such conclusions should be drawn from
his language? And did he stop short
of the description for reasons of
sympathy or modesty or shame? Is
this the general teaching Of Gods
Word or has a great and terrible mis-
take been made? And have we mis-
taken a figure Of speech and treated 1t
as literal? We erred. We misunder-
stood. The Great Teacher who rebuk-
ed his disciples, James and John, when
they desired to call fire from heaven
upon the city of SamaTia, because the
people thereof refused to sell them
food for the. Master-the sympathetic
One who said to them, "Ye know not
what manner of spirit we 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 righteous
ness than the two impetuous disciples?
Did he mean to intimate that while the
disciples might i~mpetuously have been
willing to destroy the earthly life OF
the Samaritans, the Heavenly father
of still more demonlacal disposition
would treat practically all mankind
100000 times worse than that and
use Divine Power to all eternity to per-
petuate the s~ufferings of his earthly
creatures which his own Word declares
were born in sin, shapen in iniquityl
in sin did their mothers conceive them