whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born" (Matt. 26: 24). "The Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and appoint him his portion with unbelievers" (Luke 12: 46). "He that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark 16: 16). "Thou Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell" (Matt. 11:23). "At the end of the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire" (Matt. 13: 49, 50). "Then said Jesus again to them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go ye cannot come " (John 8: 21). "The hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear my voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation " (John 5: 28, 29).

To all this, add the description of the manner in which Christ will discharge the office of the Eternal Judge. John the Baptist represents him as one "whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner, but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3: 12). And Christ

describes himself as a householder who will say to the reapers, "Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them" (Matt. 13:30); as a fisherman "casting a net into the sea, and gathering of every kind; which when it was full he drew to the shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away" (Matt. 13: 47, 48); as the bridegroom who took the wise virgins "with him to the marriage,' and shut the door upon the foolish (Matt. 25: 10); and as the man travelling into a far country who delivered talents to his servants, and afterwards reckons with them, rewarding the "good and faithful," and "casting the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 25: 19-30).

Let the reader now ask himself the question : Do these representations, and this phraseology, make the impression that the future punishment of sin is to be remedial and temporary? Are they adapted to make this impression? Were they intended to make this impression? Is it possible to believe that that Holy and Divine Person who uttered these fearful and unqualified warnings, eighteen hundred years ago, respecting the destiny of wicked men and devils, knew that a time is coming when there will be no wicked men and devils in the universe of God, and no place of retributive torment? Did Jesus of Nazareth hold

an esoteric doctrine of hell-a different view of the final state of the wicked, from that which the common and natural understanding of his language would convey to his hearers, and has conveyed to the great majority of his readers in all time? Did he know that in the far-off future, a day will come when those tremendous scenes which he described the gathering of all mankind, the separation of the evil from the good, the curse pronounced upon the former and the blessing upon the latter—will be looked back upon by all mankind as "an unsubstantial pageant faded," as a dream that is passed, and a watch in the night?

Having thus noticed the positive and explicit nature of Christ's teaching, we now proceed to examine the terms employed in Scripture to denote the abode of the lost, and the nature of their punishment.

The Old Testament term for the future abode of the wicked, and the place of future punishment, is Sheol (i). This word, which is translated by Hades (adns) in the Septuagint, has two significations: 1. The place of future retribution. 2. The grave.

Before presenting the proof of this position, we call attention to the fact, that it agrees with the explanation of Sheol and Hades common in the Early Patristic and Reformation churches, and disagrees with that of the Later Patristic, the Mediæval, and a part of the Modern Protestant

church. It agrees also with the interpretation generally given to these words in the versions of the Scriptures made since the Reformation, in the various languages of the world.

The view of the Reformers is stated in the following extract from the Schaff-Herzog encyclopædia (Article Hades): "The Protestant churches rejected, with purgatory and its abuses, the whole idea of a middle state, and taught simply two states and places-heaven for believers, and hell for unbelievers. Hades was identified with Gehenna, and hence both terms were translated alike in the Protestant versions. The English (as also Luther's German) version of the New Testament translates Hades and Gehenna by the same word 'hell,' and thus obliterates the important distinction between the realm of the dead (or nether-world, spirit-world), and the place of torment or eternal punishment; but in the Revision of 1881 the distinction is restored, and the term Hades introduced." The same change is made in the Revised Old Testament, published in 1885. The Authorized version renders Sheol sometimes by "hell," in the sense of the place of punishment, and sometimes by "grave"-the context determining which is the meaning. The Revisers substitute "Sheol" for "hell," and whenever they leave the word "grave" in the text, add the note: "The Hebrew is Sheol," in order, as they say, "to

indicate that it is not the place of burial." Had they been content with the mere transliteration of Sheol, the reader might interpret for himself. But in the preface to their version they become commentators, and interpret for him. They deny that Sheol means "hell" in the sense of "the place of torment," and assert that it "signifies the abode of departed spirits, and corresponds to the Greek Hades, or the Underworld" (Preface to the Revised Old Testament).

The meaning of an important technical term, such as Sheol, must be determined, certainly in part, by the connection of thought, and the general tenor of Scripture. An interpretation must not be put upon it that will destroy the symmetry of doctrine. Whether Sheol is from or, or any other merely linguistic particular, will not of itself decide the question whether it denotes the Heathen Orcus, or the Christian Hell. That Sheol is a fearful punitive evil, mentioned by the sacred writers to deter men from sin, lies upon the face of the Old Testament, and any interpretation that essentially modifies this must therefore be erroneous. But such an essential modification is made by denying that it is the place of torment, and converting it into a promiscuous and indiscriminate abode for all disembodied spirits. The indiscriminateness nullifies the evil, and the fear of it. A successful version of the Bible requires the union of philology and