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The Destiny of Men-What?

YOUTH AND YEARS

AT

OXFORD,

IN

Conversation on Questions of the Day.

PART 1.

BY

MANTHANO.

OXFORD: G. SHRIMPTON, 9, TURL STREET. LONDON: WHITTAKER & CO.

I.

ALIQUIS. At some distance, Sir, I thought it was You appear to be enjoying this fine walk.

you.

NEMO. This is a favourite stroll of mine. Here one finds something like quietude. I am glad, nevertheless, to meet you in this still region.

ALIQUIS. What connection may there be between thinking of a person, and presently seeing him? This so frequently occurs that one might almost fancy thought caused the appearance. Without any expectation of our meeting, I was thinking of you before you came in sight. I should add, however, that for some days I have had you more or less in my mind, and have been wishing for an interview.

NEMO. I am quite pleased to see you here, for if we had not had the good fortune to meet, a long bracing walk like the one you have taken will be of service to you in many ways. But tell me in what way I have been occupying your thoughts?

ALIQUIS. I have been thinking of you in connection with the last sermon or lecture I heard from you. The subject of that discourse has of late, I must own, had a great share of my attention. Shall I

I was so disappointed

be pardoned if I tell you, and disquieted with your views that I seriously contemplated writing you?

NEMO. Do let me know what you found so distasteful. Perhaps it was not so much the subject itself, as my mode of handling it.

ALIQUIS. To be candid, it was the subject itself, being what you described described "The Endlessness of Future Punishment." For several reasons I had concluded this doctrine was not in your creed.

NEMO. You surprise me. Was there any portion that struck you as particularly objectionable?

ortion ALIQUIS. I was disappointed with the topic of discourse, and with your representations of it, and in the introductory sentences resolved to pay but slight attention to what might follow.

NEMO. Perhaps the text disconcerted you, rather than my observations.

ALIQUIS. A little in that. A thousand passages might have been discoursed from without selecting one so mysterious and controversial. I venture to think that such subjects as your text suggested, are better omitted in pulpit ministrations.

NEMO. The words are given us by Christ, and may I not inquire, ought not His words to be discoursed from by professedly Christian teachers? Have I not heard you in glowing language unfold a lofty admiration of His character, and declare Him to be the wisest, the holiest, and the most trustworthy of Instructors? I would not give to this solemn subject a greater prominence in pulpit teaching than it occupies in Holy Scripture, but to deny it, or discard it, I should regard as unfaithfulness to the Bible. Account for it as we may, it does make up a great portion of our Saviour's teaching, and is found with more or less distinctness in every portion of the Word of God.

ALIQUIS. Are you aware, Sir, of the contempt, (I might use a stronger word) with which this dogma of "Eternal Punishment" is regarded by the intelligent people of this age? "The doctrine of endless torments, if held, is not practically taught by the vast majority of the English clergy. How rarely in these modern days have our pulpits resounded with the detailed descriptions of future punishments, which abound in the writings of the seventeenth century! How rarely does any one, even of the strictest sect, venture to apply such descriptions to any one that he has personally known! And when we read the actual grounds on which the belief is rested by those who now put it forth as one of the essential articles of faith, we find that it reposes almost entirely on the doubtful interpretation, in a single passage, of , a single word, which in far the larger proportion of passages where it occurs in the Bible, cannot possibly bear the meaning commonly put upon it in this particular text*."

NEMO. I am aware of the opposition to this doctrine by what are called the freer spirits of our times, but your observations just now, quoted from a wellknown writer, are by no means a warrantable representation of this matter. It is true enough there is too much, in the professedly Christian teaching of the day, of a marked forgetfulness of the sterner side of the Divine character, and a well-nigh omission of the enforcement of the "severity" of God. This kind of teaching is not the counterpart of our blessed Redeemer's, nor that of His Apostles'. In the scenes of creation you will find beauty and terror; in the dispensations of Providence you will find judgment, as well as mercy; and in Revelation you are frequently apprised of the exercises of chastisement, and law, and power, as well as tenderness and love. Our modern teaching is, we fear, as you have stated it,

*Dean Stanley's "Essays on Church and State," 1870. Essay iii., page 128.

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