534 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



greatest of the sons of men, but is there the 

 smallest reason for supposing that he knew any- 

 thing more about that problem than Plato, or 

 Confucius, or Comte, or the humblest of their 

 disciples? The veil which covers that mystery 

 is one which depends upon the constitution of 

 the human mind, and is not drawn back as its 

 faculties grow. The keenest eye is no more able 

 than the feeblest to get beyond the regions of 

 light. 



"When men search into the unknowable they 

 naturally arrive at very different results. There 

 are, according to Canon Farrar, four different 

 forms of creed within the Christian Church. 

 Most Protestants are of opinion that we shall 

 be divided into two classes hereafter, the good 

 being eternally happy and the wicked eternally 

 tortured. Catholics hold that there is a large 

 intermediate class of morally imperfect people 

 who are only tortured for a long time until they 

 become good. A third class thinks it more rea- 

 sonable to suppose that the bad will be simply 

 extinguished instead of tortured. A fourth holds 

 the pleasant creed that, after a certain time, 

 everybody will be infinitely and eternally happy. 

 As, moreover, there are radical differences of 

 opinion upon the significance of every word 

 employed, and the proportion of damned and 

 blessed, it is obvious that we might again sub- 

 divide the classes into many others. Now, it is 

 to be observed that the nominal believers in an 

 everlasting hell-fire have included, by general ad- 

 mission, the great numerical majority of Chris- 

 tians. The greatest divines, philosophers, poets, 

 and reformers — such men as Augustine, Aquinas, 

 Dante, and Luther — have accepted and enforced 

 this belief. It is plainly the belief of the aver- 

 age multitude in those sects which represent the 

 most vigorous forms of Christianity. Protes- 

 tants, papists, and Greeks, vie with each other in 

 setting forth the doctrine in the most forcible 

 manner. No one who has listened to a revivalist 

 sermon, or looked at the pictorial representations 

 common in Catholic countries, can deny that the 

 belief is profoundly interwoven with the religious 

 instincts of the masses. Destroy hell, and you 

 destroy that part of the Christian creed which 

 most impresses the popular imagination, and, in 

 some sects, may almost be called the key-stone of 

 the arch. 



Further, the third form of doctrine appears, 

 on Canon Farrar's showing, to be nearly peculiar 

 to the Rev. E. White, while the fourth is avow- 

 edly held only by the small and decaying sect of 

 Universalists in America. Indeed, Canon Farrar 



does not himself dare to deny hell ; he only 

 thinks that fewer people will go there, and per- 

 haps find it much less disagreeable, than is gen- 

 erally supposed. He also holds that the fate of 

 every man will not be irrevocably and definitely 

 fixed at death, and so leaves room for a purga- 

 tory differing in certain respects from the purga- 

 tory of the Roman Church. He quotes a good 

 many writers who, from the time of Origen, have 

 more or less sympathized with these views ; nor 

 would any one deny, or wish to deny, that a large 

 number of the most philosophical Christians, 

 especially in recent times, have greatly softened 

 the doctrine, and cherished hopes amounting 

 more or less nearly to a final restitution of all 

 men. A leaning to skepticism, or a more sensi- 

 tive imagination, or some loftier philosophy than 

 that of the average believer, has enabled most 

 men to extenuate or to spiritualize a doctrine in- 

 conceivably repulsive in its more intense forms. 



It remains true that the milder form of be- 

 lief is the exception. The fact that it is so is 

 admitted ; and, indeed, Canon Farrar writes just 

 because he admits it. His own opinion, he says, 

 " is not, and never has been, the opinion of the 

 numerical majority;" and it has been explicitly 

 condemned by a whole crowd of eminent writers. 

 " Thousands of theologians," as he says, in rather 

 strained language, "have taught for thousands of 

 years " that " the vast majority are in the next 

 world lost forever." The whole of Canon Far- 

 rar's contention is, therefore, not that the doc- 

 trine which he assails is heretical, but that his 

 own doctrine may also be admissible. The early 

 Church, it appears, was " wisely silent," and " al- 

 lowed various mutually irreconcilable opinions 

 to be held by her sons without rebuke." The 

 Church wisely admits that it has nothing to say 

 as to the most important of all conceivable ques- 

 tions ; it allows us to believe in a maddening or 

 an intoxicating doctrine ; we may hold that the 

 great majority of the human race are destined to 

 endless torture, and — if Canon Farrar establishes 

 his point — we may also hold that nobody will be 

 tortured eternally, and that the great majority 

 will be eternally happy. The pleasant belief may 

 perhaps be admitted by the side of the painful 

 one, but, even in that case, Canon Farrar cannot 

 retort upon his opponents the imputation of her- 

 esy. His opinion may be, theirs must be admis- 

 sible. 



What, then, is the doctrine which, by ttM? 

 general agreement, is an allowable, if not th* 

 only allowable, interpretation of the Christian 

 creed ? It is a doctrine of which Canon Farrar 



