DREAMS AND REALITIES. 



535 



cannot speak without horror and indignation. It 

 drives him — and not without excuse — into spasms 

 of excited denunciation. Canon Farrar is ac- 

 cused by his opponents of being illogical and sen- 

 timental. His rhetoric is perhaps apt to trans- 

 gress the bounds of good taste ; but certainly, if 

 anything could justify a man for such offenses 

 against sobriety, it would be the vision of unut- 

 terable horror upon which some theologians de- 

 clare themselves able to gaze with complacency. 

 But, in the rush and fervor of his eloquence, he 

 neglects one very obvious consideration. He 

 never seems to observe that he is drawing up an 

 indictment against Christianity itself. In one of 

 these sermons, he discusses the question which 

 has been lately raised, whether life is worth liv- 

 ing. He reaches of course the orthodox conclu- 

 sion that life would not be worth living without 

 the eternal hope of Christians. The atheist 

 ought to admit that life is a failure. The Chris- 

 tian can reply, " Life is infinitely worth living, 

 and death is even infinitely more worth dying ; " 

 and the reason is that " to die is to be with God 

 for evermore." Who is the "Christian" who 

 gives this reply ? If he is a believer in the creed 

 of the majority of " thousands of theologians " 

 during " thousands of years," he believes that 

 for most men to die is to be shut out from God 

 and doomed to hell-fire for evermore. He be- 

 lieves that, for the majority of the race, it would 

 have been infinitely better not to have been born. 

 The infidel may look forward to annihilation as 

 a release from the troubles of existence. The 

 Christian looks forward to a state of things in 

 which most human beings will long for annihila- 

 tion and know that it is impossible. They are 

 doomed to the state described by the great poet, 

 in which it is the worst aggravation' that they 

 have " no hope of death." 



Canon Farrar can tell us himself what is the 

 effect of such a creed upon an amiable mind. He 

 " declares and calls God to witness," that if the 

 popular doctrine of hell were true, he would re- 

 sign all hope of immortality, if he could thereby 

 save " not millions, but one human soul from 

 what fear and superstition and ignorance and 

 inveterate hate and slavish letter-worship have 

 dreamed and taught of hell." If al&vios means 

 what some people take it to mean, he would ask 

 God, " kneeling on his knees " (if that would 

 make any difference), that he might die as the 

 beasts that perish, " rather than that his worst 

 enemy should endure the hell described by Ter- 

 tullian, or Minucius Felix, or Jonathan Edwards, 

 or Dr. Pusey, or Mr. Furniss, or Mr. Moody, or 



Mr. Spurgeon, for one single year." In other 

 and less excited words, however discouraging in- 

 fidelity may be, the creed held upon this point 

 by the majority of Christians, by most theolo- 

 gians, and by the most effective preachers, is in- 

 comparably worse. It is only in accordance with 

 this view that Canon Farrar observes that the 

 doctrine is one main cause of infidelity, and that 

 it is a " wild and monstrous delusion " to suppose 

 that it deters from vice. Christians who are in 

 the habit of asserting that the doctrine of per- 

 sonal immortality is the great bulwark of moral- 

 ity, and the great advantage of their own creed 

 over infidelity, may do well to reflect upon this 

 avowal of so eloquent and enthusiastic an advo- 

 cate. If your creed is so pleasant and delight- 

 ful, why does it produce this passionate revolt 

 from an eager adherent? 



For reasons to be presently given, I think that 

 Canon Farrar has exaggerated the horrors of the 

 belief. If, however, we are to assume that Chris- 

 tians believe in hell as they believe in Paris, as a 

 sober, serious matter of fact, my only complaint 

 against Canon Farrar's language would be that all 

 rhetoric becomes simply impertinent in presence 

 of such an abomination. To hold the belief ground- 

 lessly is a misfortune deserving of the sincerest 

 sympathy ; to propagate it without certainty, an 

 offense deserving of the gravest reprobation. 

 Scorn, indeed, rather than anger is the emotion 

 provoked by the resuscitation of these shadowy 

 relics of the torture-chamber. The preacher 

 who affects to produce them knows that they are 

 rotten and will crumble if he dares to expose 

 them to any real strain. The question, however, 

 still remains which I have just asked. If Canon 

 Farrar's view be correct, the doctrine of popular 

 Christianity is, in one word, damnable. How 

 does he propose to defend the Church distin- 

 guished above all others for the force with which 

 it has propagated this devilish sentiment ? 



The ordinary mode of evasion is familiar 

 enough. We know it well in the allied question 

 of toleration. For many generations the chief 

 Christian sects persecuted right and left; they 

 burned, hanged, flogged, dragonnaded, enforced 

 penal codes, drove the best part of the popula- 

 tion into banishment, and, in short, oppressed 

 the unfortunate minority— whichever it might be 

 — by every conceivable instrument of tyranny. 

 When some heretics began to denounce the prac- 

 tice under which they suffered, the doctrine of 

 toleration was hooted down as savoring of So- 

 cinianism, deism, and atheism. Thanks to the 

 rationalist spirit within and without the Churches, 



