gous to the doctrines of orthodox Christianity concerning the future punishment of sin. 1. Sins of brief duration affect the whole after-life with terrible consequences. One short hour of sin blights fifty years of life, and would throw its terrible influence over a thousand years were life continued so long. Death interrupts the continuance of consequences here, that may continue and deepen in another state, to all eternity. So far as we can observe these consequences, they establish the principle that there is no correspondence between the length of time devoted to sin, the profit and pleasure derived from it on the one hand, and the continuance or severity of punishment on the other. So far as we may see, nature proclaims the effects of one sin to be eternal. Here, in actual existence before our eyes, under the government of God, is a disproportion between sin and its consequences, analogous to that involved in the doctrine of future punishment, against which men so loudly object. If the one is reconcilable with the Divine goodness, the other may be.

2. Thoughtless and careless acts are often attended with the most painful consequences, from which there is no escape. Nature will have itself understood, its order respected, and its laws obeyed, and for the folly of indifference or stupidity, inflicts the most terrible and far-reaching penalties, shutting out the transgressor

from the opportunity of pardon or of regaining lost opportunities. A slight irregularity in diet, in clothing, in labor, in recreation, or in exposure to the elements, often so disorders the physical system as to fill all the remaining years with pain and debility, if it does not at once cut short existence by inflicting the supreme penalty, death. The transgressor may be entirely ignorant of the laws he is violating, there may be young and helpless children, or aged parents dependent upon his care, but nature pauses not for this, is deaf to all entreaties and promises of amendment; even though the innocent must suffer with the guilty, its crashing thunder-bolts descend upon him relentless as fate. So far as we may follow nature, it contains no prophecy or hint of exemption or release from penalty.

3. In the case of moral evils attended with the most terrible consequences in this life, we often find the transgressor bitterly hostile to all efforts for his reformation. No possible influences of love, of hope, of fear, or of shame will restrain or correct him. The drunkard, the gambler, and the debauchee are eager and passionate in their devotion to vice, and repel with indignation all efforts to save them from it. And the longer such a course of life continues, the more fixed and unchangeable it seems, and the more difficult reformation beThe whole drift is toward final permanency, which, to all outward appearance, seems in many cases

comes.

to be reached even in this life. Men become hardened in sin, set in their ways, and determined in character, whether in positive transgression or in passive indifference, till it seems impossible to affect them for good. So far as we may trace the progress of sin in the indi·vidual character, or in the larger field of history during the past six thousand years, it shows great persistency and a constant tendency to permanence in its influence and power. In every field of its activity it gives proof and prophecy of its eternal development, and of its ever-deepening curse upon its unhappy victims.

4. We thus find in sin itself a probable revelation of its continuance, with all its fearful consequences in the future life. The tendency in evil passions and dispositions is to continue growing and developing, spreading their infection through all the soul, and dominating the whole character. Covetousness, pride, malice, envy, hatred, lust, ambition, and the spirit of the world grow to the close, and at the last, like a great headlight, shine far out, revealing the track along which the deathless spirit must move. They master all the forces of the life, refuse all restraints, reject all propositions for amendment, and disregard threatened consequences, till their victim seems to delight in the flame that consumes him, and to welcome the curse of the God he has blasphemed and insulted. In this life

these sins overwhelm the guilty with suffering, sorrow, and shame. They blight the joys of home, swallow up the inheritance of ancestors, squander the accumulations of years of toil, spread disease through the body, blast an honorable reputation, break up the sweetest friendships, destroy peace of mind, and, when all is reduced to desolation and ruin, compel their unhappy victim to approve and rejoice in their work. These results attend the progress of evil even in the partial development it attains in this life. The fact that they are often held in check is no argument against the tendencies of evil, and the prophecy they give of its final consequences. Pride, avarice, fear of death, the love of home, or the ties of friendship may exert a powerful influence, not in restraining or mitigating the character of evil itself, but in preventing these outward developments in time, which only make more necessary and certain its punishment in the future. When these restraints are removed, like pentup waters, which accumulate force in proportion to the restraint, evil will break forth with increased power for the ruin of the soul. In whatever form it appears, and as far as we can observe the results and tendencies of moral evil as recorded in revelation, in the wide field of nature, and in human experience, we receive only this testimony concerning it, "the wages of sin is death."

CHAPTER XI.

CONCLUSION.

I HAVE endeavored in the preceding pages to show not only that future punishment is reconcilable with Divine love, but that it grows out of it, and is its necessary expression toward sin. I have also attempted to show that punishment is a necessary element of government, without which it would not and could not exist, and since the universe is a government, we must expect to find punishment in its system of procedure. The voice of revelation, and the meaning of the terms it employs, is presented as the true foundation for our faith in this doctrine, while the absurd interpretations and inconclusive reasoning of annihilationists are pointed out. The doctrine of a future probation is shown to be untenable on the ground of reason, to be without biblical support, and to be in hopeless antagonism with the whole drift of Scripture teaching. The endlessness of future punishment is seen in the meaning of the terms employed in the Bible, in the circumstances of the announcement of the doctrine, and in the necessities of the general system of revealed truth of which it forms a part.