dies. If one would know what sin merits, he sees in the cross of Christ a costly sacrifice for its cancellation. There God has registered His estimate of sin, and there we are to read what sin is, from what sin has done. Future judgment is no arbitrary act. It is not something which springs from laws to be set in motion hereafter. It is the working out of laws under which we are now living. If we sin wilfully now, we must suffer for it. If we pass hence with a load of unrepented and unforgiven sin, judgment must surely follow us wherever we go. But it is not a new judgment. It is only a continuation of a judgment begun here; something inseparable from sin. Why should we fear to speak of a judgment to come when we know that a judgment has already come? True, the present judgment is not in every instance that which brings bitter anguish, but it is just as real as if men groaned in agony. It is a separation from goodness; a loss of spiritual power; a falling below the ideal. When men's eyes are opened they may see that the loss of what they might have been and their degradation through sin, is indeed the visitation of penalty. Judgment consists quite largely in deprivation. Such a judgment has begun here and it points to the awful issues of the future when the day of earthly probation shall have ended. We must admit the moral government of God in the present life. What reason is there to think that it will cease in another life? If sin be the corruption of man's nature, and that corruption be not checked here, then the man goes hence with an inward condition that seeks to conform itself to its surroundings. What can they be? Surely whatever they are they are different from the surroundings of those who have received that corrective of evil which is provided by the incarnation of Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit. When we think of an evil man seeking to find his place in the other world, how can we object to the use of expressions of Scripture such as "fire", "darkness", "chains"? Do not these figurative words enable us to catch a glimpse of wretchedness such as other words could not express? Figurative though they may be they point to some fearful reality. Suppose it to be the ceaseless wailing of regret:-" This is my doing. I brought this on myself." Can we fully understand the agony of such iteration? Over and over, "I brought this on myself." No shifting of responsibility. Nothing but a clear-eyed view of what he has done, and of what he has lost. And that to go on and on! Why, whoever has felt here in this life one hour's remorse knows what hell is, for he has experienced it in his own soul. To endure it for a day, or a year, for many years, for an æon! God help us, we cannot even grasp the thought! We struggle with words that tell us of fire and darkness and demons and chains and torment, but with the result of knowing only that there is some frightful reality far beyond our present human experiences. One of the most solemn questions asked by our Lord of certain hypocrites was, "How can ye escape the damnation of hell?" The damnation of Gehenna! He who warned men against speaking idle words, could He himself use words that were idle? There must surely be something to dread else He had not warned men to escape it. Future Punishment BY The Reverend CHARLES ALBERT DICKINSON, D.D. UNQU NQUESTIONABLY the doctrine of future retribution does not hold the place in religious thought that it held fifty or even twenty-five years ago. Theologians do not emphasize it as they once did; preachers do not make as much use of it as a warning; and it apparently has very little influence as a working belief in the lives of the laity. This is especially true of Protestants. Among the Catholics the doctrine has a stronger hold, but even among the more intelligent classes of that faith it seems to be weakening. This change is not peculiar to any one country, but is general throughout Christendom, being more pronounced, perhaps, where intelligent progress is more marked. Prof. Joseph Angus, D.D., a leading Baptist of London, said within the last decade: "The doctrine of future punishment has become within the last fifty years a subject of grave discussion; and not a few writers think that the evidence of a state of eternal conscious punishment has been greatly shaken." Bishop E. R. Hendrix, D.D., of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, says, "That the doctrine of future retribution after death is less frequently a theme of the pulpit than was the case a generation ago is doubtless true." And says Dr. Washington Gladden, an eminent Congregationalist, "It seems to be generally believed that the opinion of the church with respect to retribution has been greatly changed within the last century. As to the forms by which the doctrine is set forth, this belief is well founded." The question occurs to the thoughtful mind, is this change in the direction of a final elimination from our creeds of the doctrine, or is it tending toward such a restatement of the doctrine that it will eventually have a more vital effect upon life |