what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?" On a certain occasion the disciples found some whom they regarded as very dangerous enemies of Christ. And they came to him and desired permission to call down fire from heaven and devour them. This was their spirit; but how unlike the spirit of the Master. He said unto them, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the son of man is not come to destroy, but to save." I ask you here, to try the spirit of the doctrine in question, and see which it most resembles, That which would call down fire from heaven? Or, that which would pity and save even an enemy ? The latter is the Christian spirit. The former is antiChrist. Again, Jesus stood upon the mount, and the great city of Jerusalem with its temple and palaces, and all its magnificence and grandeur, was spread out before him. There his bitter enemies were congregated; there he had been persecuted and maltreated; and there he knew were the hands that would soon seize him and bear him away to an ignominious death. How did he feel towards them, and how did he treat them? Did he hurl red bolts of vengeance at them, and curse with wrath and bitterness? Nay; but when he saw their blindness and knew that they would madly rush on to ruin, he was moved with compassion, and tears of pity fell fast and freely from his eyes, as he cried in the tenderness of his spirit: "Oh! Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how oft would I have gathered you, as a hen

gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not. And now, your house is left unto you desolate, and ye shall not see me henceforth until Blessed is he that cometh in the name

say,

ye shall
of the Lord."

66

A few days after, we find him in that same city, betrayed into the hands of his enemies, seized and dragged to the judgment hall, accused as a malefactor, false witnesses standing up against him, and an infuriated multitude crying out: Crucify him! crucify him!" The crown of thorns is plaited and put upon his head. He is reviled, smitten and spat upon. But he bore it all with meekness. He reviled not again, and no word of wrath proceeded from his lips. The cross is laid upon his shoulders and he is led forth to Calvary. He is nailed to the tree, and the blood runs streaming from his hands and feet, an angry mob wag their heads and mock him, saying, "If thou art the Christ come down from the cross." But his was a spirit of kindness which could not be overcome of evil. And when he asked for drink, and they gave him vinegar and gall, even in the agonies of death, he lifted his voice and prayed for his murderers, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do," and he bowed his head and died. O! ye who would hurt and destroy, and anathematise and curse one another; look hither and learn mercy of Jesus, and see here the spirit of the gospel of Christ.

Behold the blessed Savior standing upon the

mount and pouring out his tears over the woes of that city where his enemies were even then taking counsel to destroy him. Behold him upon the cross lifting his feeble, dying voice to heaven in prayer for God's blessing upon those who were even then taking his life; and in the name of all that is just and true, tell me, is there a spirit like this in the doctrine of endless wrath and damnation? Nay, but light and darkness are not more widely, and irreconcilably at variance. Every word and act of the life of the meek and lowly Jesus, rises up in judgment, and stamps the mark of anti-Christ upon any, and every doctrine that allows or breathes the spirit of wrath and cruelty. He who wept for the woes of humanity, and prayed even for his enemies, has breathed his own spirit into his religion, and by this standard you may try the spirits whether they be of God.

As I intimated in the beginning, so I now repeat, the religion of Jesus Christ is essentially a system of peace and good will; and it is no more certain that sweet and bitter waters do not flow from the same fountain, than that doctrines of love and hatred do not both belong to the gospel. One or the other must be abandoned, for if one be Christ, the other is anti-Christ. And hence it was that the Apostle said, "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be." They ought to abandon one or the other, for both could not be of God. And

:

What, then, is the doctrine of endless misery? Stripped of all its drapery it is no more or less than this that a large part of the human family are doomed to suffer the most intense and indescribable torments as long as God shall exist, without the least hope, or possibility, of being benefitted by their sufferings. In some part of this beautiful universe God has prepared an awful, dismal, burning hell, and there countless myriads of human beings shall weep and groan unpitied and unrelieved, while ceaseless ages shall roll; and when ten thousand times ten thousand years shall have passed, they shall have as long to suffer as if their sufferings had but just begun. And then to think of the number of the lost, to remember that there are on this earth not less than eight hundred million of human beings, and that out of these there are not more than fifty million that can be saved upon the broadest system of partialism; and that, by consequence, there must be more than seventy thousand souls going down to hell every day; and then to think of generations that have past, and reflect upon the vast and countless multitudes that must be congregated in that huge reservoir of tears and wo; the very thought bears the lie upon its front. The degree of the punishment outrages all ideas of proportion between guilt and punishment, and the number of the victims shocks all feelings of humanity or mercy. It makes the universe a theatre of cursing and blasphemy, rather than a field for the dis

play of the boundless perfections of a merciful and benevolent Creator.

Suppose that, up to this moment, you had never heard of the doctrine of endless misery. You had lived in a world where the blessings of a munificent Father had always surrounded you; and had known nothing of that dismal hell of which you hear so much. Suppose now I should for the first time inform you that God had prepared such a place of suffering, and that there He would torment a part of his creatures without mercy, and without end. There is not a man, woman, or child, who would not pronounce it the most unreasonable and improbable of all dreams and visions. You would go away and wonder what strange infatuation had seized upon the preacher, that he should indulge such visions. What! men to be tormented through all eternity for the sins of this short life! Man to be punished with infinite wo for his finite crimes! God who maketh the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust, built an endless hell, and He himself to become the endless tormentor of his own creatures! This beautiful world a mere nursery, where souls are made to be transplanted to a place of endless wo!! Who on earth could have thought of such an idea? Thus unsophisticated reason would view the subject when seen for the first time. And think you, that doctrine is any more reasonable, or consistent, for having been repeated so long and so often? Nay;