Year: 1865

THE Reverend Henry Ward Beecher has


secured the copyright Of his Remarks on


He'll, being the thirty-eighth number of bis


"Lecture Room Talks, published in the New


York Independent. The lecture was deliver


ed in response to a letter asking the Rever-


end Henry what he meant by hell and future


punishment To this he replies that he'll


means "the state in which the incorrigibly


wicked are herded together and suffer the le-


gitimate result Of their wicBedness; :" and adds


81 need not therefore answer the second


question, as to the meaning future punish


ment


Whether there is any resemblance between
copy right and patent right; and whether to
obtain the one is to secure the other, so that


the infringement Of one is the infringement Of
both, are legal questions to the elucidation Of
which we are not competent. We hope that
simply in copying the Rev. Beecher's specif-
cations, we are incurring no penalty, as we
Utterly disclaim any intention Of putting them
TO use in corresponding institutions.


Indeed, if we were desirous to do so, we
could not for their want of certainty They
are as blind and indefinite as the hints of the
M,rquis of Worcester on the steam engine,
the meaning of which was not discovered un-
til the steam engine was created, two hun
drei years atterwnrd. But this is not all of
which we have to complain. The Reverend
Beccher has not only made the specifications
of his own hell-and his own heaven also
indefinite; but has swept away, in single
sentence, all the characteristic features of the
other ones, of the anticipatory fruition of
which the world has so long enjoyed the ben
eft. He tells US distinctly that the birthstone
Of the one, and the gold of the other, are
simply things of the imagination


"As no man supposes that the streets of
heaven are paved with gold because the Ap-
ocalypse represents them as being so paved,
so we are not to suppose that the gross rep
reservations Of hell, which we find in the
New Testament, are to be taken literally"


Now, as nearly all that nine-tenths of
Christendom know of heaven is its golden
streets, and of hell is its birthstone privileges,
this looks to US like sweeping away pretty
much the foundations of the Christian faith
and if we of the Cincinnati Enquirer should
have the audacity to stand up in our pulpit
and say that this need not be believed merely
because it is affirmed in the Apocalypse, and
that is not entitled to credit simply because it
is set forth in the New Testament, several Of
or readers would be apt to accuse us of gross
infdelity, and stop their papers to prove the
soundness Of their doctrine, and the sincerity
of their Indignation.


We are aware that the preaching of brim-
stone hell, in more enlightened communities,
is pretty much limited to camp-rneetings, and
seasons of religious awakening When the
Lord causes his spiritual garden to bud and
blossom, our reverend brethren are prone to
second his efforts with an abundant yield Of
rhetorical flowers Of sulphur; but when the
benign influence is withholden, the odor OF
the pungent chemical in question mostly dis
appears from our pulpit exercitations. We
have been wont to attribute this not to any
in the fundamentals of theology, but
simply to the careful consideration of a hu-
name and accomplished clergy for the eXcit- !
able nerves and ears polite of refined and cul- |
tivated audiences. This might be tolerated;
but for a popular minister to come out in the
face of the world, and in contradiction to the
distinct teachings Of the "Word Of God, and |
insist that the heaven and hell Of eighteen
hundred and sixty-fve years Of Christianity /
are the creations Of fancies, gross, material
and grotesque, is a blow, not only at our
faith, but at the sources Of his own
oroGt and the credit Of his own oracle, Gs on
" sheer madness would inflict.


Mr.. Beecher evidently did not consider all
the consequences Of his invention or discov-
erv His system discards the Last Judgment
also. Tith all its tremendous scenery when
,a makes the wicked to suffer il hell simply
the z-5itsmats result Of their wickedness. He
1enriyes the Christions in heaven Of the
pleasure which was promised them by his
predecessors, Of relieving the mo-
2otony OF psalm-singing eternity, BY climb
no M the battlements Of the holy city to see
heir old friends and neighbors simmer and
corch in the blue furnace below. And worse
han all this, he utterly ignores his majesty,