The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1913-05-06

ing back to the Word of God, are being
sanctified by the Word of Truth.
Proceed With My Text.
II this were the only text mistrans-
lated and misunderstood, the ordinary
reader would doubtless pass it by, say
ing, 81 do not understand it. Probably
it is figure of speech" But this text
is merely combination of mistransla-
tons, all Of which are connected with
an eternal torment system Of doctrines
invented during the Dark Ages. 1t is
this combined system which has such
power over mems minds. This power
of error, this power of fear, is turning
intelligent minds away from the Bible.
Hence it is our duty to break down the
false doctrines, and to clear away the
obstacles which hinder the flow of
Truth to the minds and hearts of the
people of God-the straying sheep.
Nor are these straying sheep all, or
chiefly the ignorant They include
many Of the ablest minds and truest
hearts In the world-minds and hearts
too true and too logical to believe pal
pable falsehoods, or to profess what
they do not believe.
The Psalmist is merely telling of his
of God he recovered. He would have
us understand that it was not merely a
slight ailment. He described his emo
lions In the language of our text, say
ing, ''the sorrows of death comprised
me about; that is to say, the sadness
associated with the thought that he
was about to die, about to leave his
friends. In the poetic form of the He
brew language, he repeated this
thought; namely, 1.-THE pains of hell
gat hold upon me-" In our modern
language this would mean the pains of
death, or the pains of the tomb. They
were pains that indicated the approach
Of dissolution. Nothing in this text
has the slightest reference to anything
In the future life.
Our Baptist friends, in their revised
translation of the Bible, have chosen
for such passages as this the express
sion, 1.-The underworld" instead of the
word 'hellr Yet even here there is
danger of the average reader not catch
ing the true thought Far simpler and
far less liable to be misunderstood
would it have been. had the translators
said, THE pains of the tomb" The
Revised Version of the English Bible
reads, '"The pains of Sheol."
Why Not the Whole Truth2
Every learned minister knows that
the Hebrew word Sheol really means
the grave, the pit, the state of death
Why do they hesitate to tell the people
the whole truth on this subject? Why
do they translate it part of the time
''the grave" and at other times ''the
underworld? Why do they use the
translation, 1.-The grave in one place,
and 'the pitt in another. and then re-
fuse to translate the word at all in the
third instance. but give the word
Sheol? Was it their intention to con-
fuse the people? What is the motive?
We wish that some of these great men
would explain.
The Reason For All This.
We would like to have our minis
terial brethren state their reasons for
pursuing a course of hiding the truth
on the subject of hell. Only because
they neglect to give the reasons do we
feel at liberty to suggest them. 1t
seems to me that these ministers are
of two classes, and that their reasons
are therefore slightly different All
OF them seem to agree that it would
be dangerous to tell the people that
God is really God of Love, and that
the doctrine of an eternity of torture
is entirely unscriptural, finding no
foundation whatever in the writings of
the Apostles.
They fear to tell the people that
these doctrines were built up during
the Dark Ages by the very men who
manifested so little of the Spirit of
God and SO little knowledge of Gods
will respecting His people that they
burned one another at the stake They
fear to tell the people that during the
Dark Ages our blinded forefathers
took the parallels and dark sayings Of
Jesus as literal statements, quite con-
trary to the Masters evident inten-
ton. These they supplemented with
certain crude misconceptions of the
symbolisms OF The Revelation. From
the combinations they made scarecrow
doctrines, blasphemous in the extreme,
which never produced saints, but which
led men astray into thinking that they
were copying God in the deviltry
which they accomplished one toward
another.
The fear now seems to be lest the
public should once perceive that the
creeds Of Christendom, while contain
ing much good, are cankered, wormy
and vitiated by those doctrines of de-
mons. Why should they fear to tell
the people the truth? Perhaps it is be-
cause the religion of our day is built
so largely upon man-worship, sys-
tem-worship, creed worship and not
upon the Bible. Perhaps they fear
that If the creeds were thus discredited
it would mean that the ministers of
those creeds will be similarly discred-
tied. Perhaps they fear that the peo-
pie would never again have confidence
in their teachings. and that thus all
the various party walls Of Christendom
which for so long a time have divided
the sheep would fall We cannot def
nitely know of their reasons, because
they do not tell US, we can only sur
mise.
Others. very worldly-wise, have be-
come Higher Critics, and do not believe
in the Bible at all. They are really
agnostics. But they do not desire to
advertise their lack of faith, lest it
should detract from their esteem
among men. They prefer to pose as
believers, and to hope that the time
will come when all the wealthy and
intelligent viii become unbelievers
also. Then they will declare, 1--WE have
not been believers for many years, but
we kept the matter secret, fearing to
be misunderstood as opponents Of the
best interests of society,"
All the while, this latter class con-
stitutes the greatest menace in the
world to law and order. and are the
best agents Satan has in making void
the Word Of God and destroying faith
therein. Robert Ingersolps methods
of antagonizing the Bible were far less
successful than the methods of modern
Higher Critics and EvoIutionists.
Fear to Tell the Truth.
All who oppose the telling to the
public of the plain truth respecting
hell seem to have one common ground
of objection. They say, with all the