that the human heart is biased to begin with, on the side of opposition to a doctrine so frightful as the everlasting punishment of the wicked. I have long held the opinion that all young people are more or less sceptical on religious matters. Every young and fresh heart is "a heart of unbelief," and fancies it sees what was never before seen, and knows what was never before known. Hence these youthful inquirers need the greatest forbearance and patience. I had far rather encounter the queries and difficulties of sceptical, but ingenuous, youth, (and many such I believe there are), than the pertness and stolidity of a contemptuous doubter.

ALIQUIS. Will you have the goodness to re-capitulate the outlines of the discourse to which I have referred?

NEMO. I may be able to give you a summary of my observations, and on reaching home shall be happy to supply you with a fuller report.

The statement of the text, "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal", " naturally led me to inquire into its connection, and I remarked that the chapter from which these words are taken, contains the parable of the ten virgins, and the parable of the talents; the one designed to enforce Christian watchfulness, and the other Christian fruitfulness. I afterwards said that these impressive illustrations of Christian life are followed by a vivid representation of the Day of Judgment, personal salvation and individual responsibility being revealed in relation to this advent of Christ. At the world's Great Assize there will only be two classes of character, the righteous and the wicked, and but two separate destinies awaiting

them.

*Matthew xxv., 46.

ALIQUIS. That I remember, but I thought it required more proof than you furnished.

NEMO. Will the Saviour's words admit of any other interpretation? He plainly shews that the life of righteousness will issue in endless blessedness, since He represents the Judge as welcoming the righteous to the Kingdom of Glory, while the language addressed to the other class of character is, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Is there not here a final finding of character, and but two destinies, alike unchangeable and endless? What can our Saviour's words to the ungodly and unholy mean, but their utter and fixed divorce from God, and from all that is good, a dismal banishment to a region of conscious and unending woe? The text announces the perpetuity of the character formed on earth, which is so markedly stamped upon the crowds before the Judgment Throne, that, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats, so distinctly the Judge separates one class from the other. Under the eye of Omniscience they divide according to their felt relationship to the Judge. I was careful I think in affirming that religion is not a mere question of words, or beliefs, but determined by works which are manifestations of moral life. Future blessedness, or future perdition, is the result of moral conduct on earth. The course of life pursued in a probationary existence, gives form and character to destiny. Eternal punishment is the direct and inevitable result of rejecting the offers of God's mercy, it is a consequence of conduct, and not any revengeful penalty attached to infirmity, misfortune, or transgression. The "sheep" and the "goats" sustained different relationships to God in time, and since judgment does not alter character, but only declares. it, and determines its destiny, the persons symbolized by these names will sustain the same moral relation

ship to God throughout their endless existence. The wicked on earth lived far away from the Divine favour by wilful disobedience; after judgment they will be kept exiled by power from the possibility of obtaining it. Christ does not say the abode of punishment was prepared for earthly sinners from the beginning of the world, for since God is free from evil, He determines no one to evil, but men plunge themselves into the abyss of demoniacal reprobation, and are the authors of their own doom.

In the words of the passage before us, the concluding scene of the Day of Judgment is unfolded, and we are asked to behold the final separation of the two classes of character spoken of throughout the chapter. The sentences of the Judge have been pronounced, and the words in this passage are their execution, or the carrying them into effect; "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." I have been using, I am well aware, solemn words, and their possible application to ourselves, or others, is a painful thought; but after repeated examinations of this text and its connection, I could not honestly speak otherwise. Of course if we begin to speculate and theorize, we may fancy a thousand things, but we shall have first to abandon the common-sense meaning of the Saviour's language. It was my duty further to observe, that the terms which are applied to the duration of the happiness of the righteous, and to the punishment of the wicked, are not only of a similar import, but literally the same, the endless duration of both states of existence being unequivocally affirmed in identical terms. If we doubt the endlessness of the one state, we are bound to demur to the endlessness of the other, and the conclusion will be, there is neither heaven nor hell in the future. The neglect of the conditions, the performance of which secures for the "sheep" eternal life, forms the reason why the

"goats are consigned to the abode of despair. The endless duration of that character with which both the godly and the ungodly leave the Throne of Judgment is unmistakably declared.

ALIQUIS. But wait, Sir, that conclusion will require further confirmation. I am not certain that the word translated "eternal" and "everlasting" has anything to do with duration, or continuance in being.

NEMO. Do you mean that it is doubtful whether or not there is an existence of endless blessedness after death, since this word is the only one by which it is revealed to us? If our Lord meant to exclude perpetuity of duration, He would not have used terms which have been from His day until ours misunderstood and misleading. Further, if you exclude the idea of time or duration from such words as "eternity," "eternal life," "eternal death," there is an end of certainty of meaning, definiteness passes into conjecture, and reasoning loses its data. To me it appears plain, that the future life of the righteous is questioned by the bold and gratuitous assertion, that aivios (everlasting) has no reference to time or duration.* An everlastingness of blessedness could not be revealed to us unless distinct and intelligent terms were employed to denote it. Since Scripture represents a future life as a continuation of the present one, its representations, warnings, promises, and duration, must be based on the present nature of man, and existing facts and conceptions. I readily allow the difficulty of forming a conception of an eternity of misery, and as readily acknowledge that the complete idea of absolute eternity, in any relationship whatever, transcends the powers of human thought. Yet, for this reason, you cannot expect me to do such strange violence to the language of Holy Scripture, as insist that words cannot mean what, according to the

* Mr. Maurice's "Theological Essays," p. 436.

ordinary rules of construction, they must mean, and which hitherto they have been understood to mean. Everlastingness of blessedness, and of misery, I must repeat, is described in the New Testament only by this word, and it is never used there in a future sense of anything besides. besides. In twelve distinct instances I have noticed it is applied in the Greek Scriptures to the punishment of the wicked.

Here, in passing, let me observe we are nowhere so much in danger of erring and of being imposed upon, as on the subject of religion. Many, in other respects discriminating and consistent, may be charged. with folly here, and an abandonment of those rules of thought and prudence, which mark their secular studies and temporal affairs. As an illustration of my meaning, I would remark, we attach a definite sense to the word aiwvíos in Greek authors. You will remember a passage in Aristotle, where this word is explained at length. In describing the highest heaven as the residence of the gods, he says, "that as to the things there, time never makes them grow old; neither is there any change of any of them. They are unchangeable and passionless, and having the best, even the self-sufficient life, they continue through all eternity." If, in reading this passage in the original to another, you were told the terms alov, aiwvíos, (eternity and everlasting,) had no reference to duration, and were words on which we could place no dependence, you would at once be tempted to despise the man and his assumed scholarship. You would properly say to him, without this meaning of these appellations, the passages in which they occur would have no signification. As a scholar you would maintain, that they express a state or condition of being which knows no ending. Other passages from Greek authors might be adduced, where these expressions are employed with the distinct signi

* De Cœlo, Lib. i., ch. 9.