or our current literature will show any one that we know "that holiness and happiness are inseparably connected." The incongruity exists in conceiving of heaven as only locality, and salvation as getting into a good place. It is rather absurd to suppose saints and sinners shut up all together within four jeweled walls and playing on harps, whether they like it or not. I have faint hopes that after another hundred years or so, it will begin to dawn on the minds of those to whom this idea is such a weight, that nobody with any sense holds or ever did hold it. To the Universalist, heaven in its essential nature is not locality, but moral and spiritual status; and salvation is not securing one and avoiding another place, but salvation is finding eternal life. Immortal life is merely endless existence after bodily death. All souls, saints and sinners, do go together into immortal life just as they were together in this life. Eternal life has primarily no reference to time or place, but to a quality. Jesus said, "This is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Immortal life is existence regardless of quality. Eternal life is right life, here, there, everywhere. Men may be locally together in this or in immortal life, and still be spiritually and morally separate. The murderer at death enters immortal life; "but ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him" (1 John iii, 15). Why did John say "abiding in him," if eternal life is a place men go to? So long as a man harbors the spirit of murder or any other evil spirit he has not eternal life abiding in him, and locality has nothing to do with the matter. I believe that finally every created soul will be drawn, not forced, to choose to seek, and when he chooses to seek will be helped to find, eternal life. I will condense into narrow space a few reasons for this hope.

1. I base this belief-for my belief and hope are one on the attributes of God as admitted by all Christians. In finite Wisdom knows the end from the beginning, and will not in the begin ning create what will defeat the end.

Infinite Power is able to control all things toward a desired end. Infinite Love, as expressed in the words "Our Father," will do the best for its children. What shall we say of the attribute of justice? No attribute has been so belittled as this. We once heard that since man's sin was infinite, justice demanded infinite punishment; now it is changed to the statement, if men sin endlessly, justice demands they be punished endlessly. Both these statements are an abortion, a caricature of justice. No finite man can commit an infinite sin. If any man sin endlessly, justice cannot be satisfied, but only endlessly thwarted. Justice demands obedience to just law. It is never satisfied with less. As God is a just God, so nothing is ever settled until it is settled right. There are other attributes. "God is a consuming fire." His wrath and anger are spoken of. These attributes express the Divine hand raised against sin. If the Divine hand is raised against sin, one or the other must yield, and I don't believe it is God that must yield. God is a consuming fire, not a fire burning forever in empty rage. He consumes man as the refiner's fire does the ore, burning the dross and bringing forth the good, as gold tried by fire.

2. I base my hope on the office and character of Jesus Christ. I see in his life no clumsy mechanical device of vicarious atonement. He did not shed blood to appease an angry Deity. The Deity does not want blood, he wants obedience. The life and teachings and death of Jesus are the supreme appeal to all mankind, "Be ye reconciled to God." God never needed to be reconciled to them, save in some such sense as any loving father might feel a barrier between himself and a prodigal son. Blood cannot remove it. Only the son coming back penitent can. The character and purpose of Jesus are most comprehensively stated in the parables of "The Lost Sheep," ""The Lost Piece of Silver," "The Prodigal Son." The final declaration of his purpose he told when he declared, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." The com

pletion of this purpose man's rebellion may delay but cannot disappoint or annul.

3. I base my hope on the trend of Scripture. It is well known that a comparatively small portion of Scripture bears on this immortal life and the great end of our course. Conduct is three-fourths of life. This present life is the great pressing concern. A very large portion of the Old Testament dwells on righteousness and its earthly temporal rewards, or sin with its temporal punishments. The New Testament is a great appeal to men to build character, seek eternal life, and "now is the accepted time." A solemn reserve is thrown over the future life; the great emphasis is on the present time. This is precisely as it should be. Not a few threats of judgment and promises of joy have been stupidly and persistently thrust over there which belonged

here.

Now and then, however, scattered through the Bible, its writers looked into the future, and spoke of the great consummation. There are enough such passages to give every believer warrant for his hope of immortal life.

Take, then, these passages which speak of the great end and consummation on the point in question, of course, many others bear-and what is the trend of these Scriptures? Without an exception that I know of, in these passages is a great song of joy, a great shout of triumph. I can cite but one: "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. xv, 24–28).

4. I base my hope on the Word of God speaking in the best heart and conscience of the race-the Word heard in the best poems and songs, the best prayers and hopes, of humanity. The ages have been darkest when this hope was

lowest. It cannot be successfully controverted that out of the six theological schools of the Early Church four taught the doctrines of Universalism, only one annihilation of the wicked, and one their endless punishment. To-day no preacher in his fiercest sermons approximates to such utterances as those of Jonathan Edwards. If he did he would not be tolerated a year. The Christian pulpit is silent on the doctrine of endless punishment, or else denies it, as Farrar, Beecher, Swing, and Thomas, and a great multitude of greatest minds have done.

I wish to contrast two utterances, and leave the reader to judge which is the nobler. One is this utterance of Mr. Talmage, at Chautauqua. He said:

"Nearly all the heterodox people I know of believe all are coming out at the same destiny without regard to faith and character: Nero and Wesley, Guiteau and Garfield. I turn away from such a debauched heaven. Against that cauldron of beastliness I place the two destinies of the Bible for ever and for ever apart."

This is the surviving remnant of the idea once so vividly preached that the saints in heaven need the sight of hell to complete their joys. The other utterance I contrast to the above is Hawthorne's in "Glimpses of English Poverty." He says of the wretched London poor:

"How difficult to believe that anything so precious as a germ of immortal growth can vice! Oh, what a mystery! Slowly, slowly, have been plunged into this cesspool of as after groping at the bottom of a deep, noisome pool, my hope struggles upward to the surface, bearing the half drowned body of a child and bearing it aloft for its own life, and my own life, and all our lives. Unless these slime-clogged nostrils can be made capable of inhaling celestial air, I know not how the purest and most intellectual of us can reasonably expect ever to taste a breath of it. The whole question of eternity is staked there. If a single one of those helpless little ones be lost, the world is lost."

Which of these two sentiments is most like the Jesus of the people?

No Christian prays for endless sin and punishment. If God permits it, it must be good and right. Why not pray for it? All Christians pray for the salvation of sinners, and yet profess to be

lieve it will never be. The first essential of prayer is that it be in faith. The Universalist Church is the only one that believes in success.

Having sketched the bases of my hope that all will seek and find eternal life, it remains to notice a few statements brought against the validity of these proofs.

1. It is objected that we cannot judge what infinite wisdom, love, etc., will do. Very true! Eye cannot see, nor heart feel. How, then, do my orthodox friends get their information of God's intention to endlessly damn us? While we do not presume to measure God's attributes we dare not limit them with mete and bound. I at least suppose them to be infinitely better than the best, instead of infinitely worse than the worst, of man's ways.

2. It is objected that God permits awful pain, misery, and injustice here, which it seems infinite love could not do. He may permit these endlessly. I answer, temporal evil admits of an explanation. It may co-exist with infinite love; but endless evil admits of no explanation. 'Tis a senseless, rayless, starless abyss.

3. "Many die and enter the immortal life who have never sought nor found eternal life, and death ends probation," says the objector.

As the word "probation" is not in the Bible, neither is the thing itself in its popular sense.

The demand is made, "Show us a text which says man can repent after death." Suppose a certain number of men should agree that no man has moral opportunity after 1890. I deny their belief. They say, "Show a text which says a man can repent after 1890." I reply, the burden of proof rests on you who have set up the external, mechanical, arbitrary and artificial date. The

fact is that Scripture and reason declare that "now is the accepted time." Now is the time to live, to do, to be. No wise man defers it. It is as wise and as safe to defer it a day after death as it is a day after any other date. It is neither wise nor safe to defer it at all. There is nothing in the event of death

that fixes character and ends a soul's moral possibilities more than there is in the date 1890 or any other arbitrary date. Those who set dates, such as death, after which moral beings cease to be moral beings must show their proofs. Rev. G. F. Wright, in his book, "The Relation of Death to Probation," cites six texts which he thinks prove that death ends probation. I do not believe that under a true exegesis one of these texts supports such a doctrine; but even admitting it, shall six texts outweigh all the rest of Scripture and reason ?*

Against the six texts I place the single psalm which twenty-six times declares "His mercy endureth forever." Any of the multitude of texts which call on men to repent and come to life is a denial of probation. The call is not issued good for thirty days or until death, but good until used. The present life is not a probation, but a discipline. It is the initial step of a moral order whose progressive stages are to be endless. The principles of God's government are not suddenly changed at death or any other date. He is "Our Father," and "the same yesterday, today and forever." The endless ages of immortal life are not given to sit on a flower-bed, and sing, and play harps, but for the endless development of immortal souls.

4. The form of objection changes. Formerly it was that God elected some to damnation and they could not help themselves. Now we are told he leaves all free to make their own choice. "God has made us so completely free we can go to heaven or hell just as we choose.” "Sinners damn themselves." Millions choose evil: may they not always choose it? The reply is, that this is the sinner's will arrayed in battle against the Divine will. One must ultimately yield. I expect it will not be God. God will not coerce the sinner's will by force. He faces it as a consuming fire, and the day comes when the sinner

* To those who wish to read a full discussion of this doctrine, I recommend the above named book; and as statement of the other side, "The Doctrine of Probation Examined," Dr. G. H. Emerson, Universalist Publishing House, Boston.

sinks down beaten and cries out, "God, I yield." Terrible is God against sin, foolish the soul that contests against him. Montaigne defined a lie as "Courage toward God and weakness toward man." What sin is not this? The sinner is one who has courage to enter a contest of his will against God's will. My orthodox friends tremble for God. I do not. I exhort them too "have faith in God."

5. The objector says the sinner cannot repent. He cannot will to repent. He has sinned until it is a habit. Habit has fixed his character. By the momentum of character the endless future is dominated. He does not will eternal life and by-and-by he cannot will it. The force of habit is indeed strong, but this argument overloads it tremendously. To say three score years and ten give a character momentum for eternity is about like saying a child's toy pistol gives a Krupp gun projectile momentum to go round the world a million times. If a man cannot will to obey he cannot sin. He is not a responsible actor. If death does this we are all alike unmanned. There can be neither heaven nor hell, not men but things. How often are fixed habits broken and men lifted out of ruts by some stronger motive, some mightier appeal! A woman studies the piano until her fingers play by habit, but the cry of her first babe so fills her soul that the lesser habit is forgotten under the stress of the diviner appeal. A man by habit profane has many a time been awed and silenced by the presence of dignified and purer souls. In the immortal world a thousand influences and motives may lift out of habits. Says Dr. Miner: "The father's hand may be tenderly laid upon the head of his wayward child as no hand had ever before been laid upon it; and the sight of the holiest, the most paternal, and the most loving of beings may touch that child's heart as it had never before been touched."

Against my hope is quoted the Bible word "hell." The Universalist is characterized as one who does not believe in hell. We believe the Bible doctrine of hell. Sin in a soul is fitly symbolized

by the words Gehenna, Hades, Sheol, and Tartarus. Not one of these words primarily means a place of torment after death. The word "hell" in its old English sense of "to cover" was a passable translation of these original words, but in its present orthodox sense is not a translation of one of them, but an unwarranted substitution.

What are we to say when these substantives are described by the adjectives "everlasting," "forever and forever," etc.? What is the Bible use of these adjectives? They are applied to God and immortal life: here we know they mean endless from the nature of the subject. They are applied to the rainbow, Levitical rites, Jewish possession of Canaan, hills and stars; here we know from the nature of the subject they do not mean endless. These adjectives are therefore indefinite, and take their force from the nature of the subject to which they are applied. That eminent Bible scholar, Professor Taylor Lewis, said: "The preacher in contending with the Universalist would commit an error, and it may be suffer a failure in his argument, should he lay the whole stress of it on the etymological or historical significance of the words aion and aionios, and attempt to prove that of themselves they necessarily carry the meaning of endless duration."*

This is an honest concession from a great orthodox scholar of what my church has always contended for. On Sunday, Nov. 11, 1877, in Westminster Abbey, the great preacher, Canon Farrar, said very impressively: "I ask you where would be the popular teachings about hell if we calmly and deliberately erased from our English Bibles the three words 'damnation,' 'hell,' and 'everlasting'? Yet I say unhesitatingly, I say, claiming the fullest right to speak with the authority of knowledge, I say with the calmest and most unflinching sense of responsibility, I say, standing here in the sight of God and my Savior, and, it may be, of the angels and the spirits of the dead, that not one of these words ought to stand any longer in the English Bible."

*Lange's Commentary on Ecclesiastes, p. 48.

Thus I sketch in merest outline my reasons for saying that none of the objections made are sufficient to undermine the bases on which I rest my hope that all will finally seek and find eternal life.

THE FOUNDATION OF A WORLD

FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST.

On what foundation shall we rest our faith in Christ, -a faith not for ourselves only, but for all humanity?

I. Jesus spake as never man before spake or since hath spoken on that highest of all subjects, religion. It is true that to-day his precepts seem simple, easily understood, widely practiced. But the most profound truth is always the simplest. Deep thought is often too little appreciated by men because as in a lake of pure water the clearness conceals the depth. Long words and mixed ideas are mistaken for profundity, and simple depth passes unheeded. Further, to understand and learn a principle is one thing, to originate it, quite another; to originate it moreover in an age of comparative ignorance, with no spirit of the age to call it forth, is simply marvelous, -spiritual genius of the very highest type. And this was what Jesus did. His wisdom is not inferior to that of Socrates or of any other seer. But where Socrates appealed to the intellect alone, Jesus appealed to the heart also, to the whole man,-to his wisdom he added an all-embracing love and charity, to this, indefatigable effort to help and to comfort. He conceived more clearly and more symmetrically than all before him the relation of men to God and laid the foundation of a beautiful religion corresponding with the qualities and demands of our spiritual nature. He is the highest type and exemplar of personal religion of all ages, one of the wonderful productions of the natural workings of the universal spirit. There has been but one Shakespeare, but one Raphael; and as above the genius of literature or of art, rises far the power of morality and righteousness and spiritual discernment, so Jesus Christ, though the natural product of the ages, stands surpassingly above all other men whom the world has ever known.

II. He is the center of providential history; he is the central figure in and the founder of the religion of the enlightened world. Would that I had time to expand this subject. Suffice it to say that while we may distrust all miraculous views of divine providence, the world-order shows to the most sceptical mind a fitness of development, a march of progress, a making for righteousness in which the personality and teachings of Jesus Christ, in our civilization at least, have been the center of movement and influence.

III. He is the type and example of moral and spiritual principles which the experience of eighteen centuries has proved to be true; for he was not supernatural but natural, not God but man, not a sacrifice but a teacher. Truth is its own authority, and through this authority it adds ever new lustre to the name of Jesus Christ. One of the ablest men of the Methodist church, seeking to establish the truth of vicarious atonement and other doctrines connected with the view of Jesus as second person of a trinity, has adduced as proof the increasing interest in the life of Jesus Christ, the numerous biographies of him, the growing reverence for his name. Singular and fatal delusion! The sole cause of these things, the sole cause of the increasing interest and reverence of humanitarian, philosopher, scientist, is the growing view of Jesus as a man among men, as a just and holy human teacher. Ever are these feelings deepened as he is brought nearer to us as our elder brother, as one who, blessed with marvelous spiritual insight, encumbered with sorrows and hardships far beyond the general lot of mankind, so lived and so taught, that, though a martyr in the cause of righteousness, he achieved results through his life and death, greater than ever before or since have accrued from the life of a single man. He acted out the principles he taught to men; others have pursued the same pathway, and by their experience and by ours, by the experience of the world, the cardinal principles of his instruction,-love to God and love to man, unselfishness, charity,