634 



HELL 



HELLEBORE 



arose. To set aside these arid bring each of the 

 two sides, the mundane and the supramundane, 

 or the social and individual, hope of perfection 

 to the clearest possible view appears to be the 

 eschatological taslc of the theology of the present. 



The primitive Christian faith in the return of 

 Christ and the earthly erection of his kingdom 

 includes the ideal of the earthly realisation of the 

 kingdom of God, or of the extensive and intensive 

 permeation of the Christian spirit throughout 

 humanity, as the goal and task of the history 

 of the world. It is in the union of all mankind 

 in the family of the children of God and in 

 the moralising of the whole life of society through 

 the power of the Christian spirit that the victori- 

 ous Coming and Royal Rule of Christ in the 

 earthly world is constantly realising itself. But, 

 because realising itself upon the foundation of the 

 historical life of nations, it remains constantly 

 bound to those conditions and limits which are 

 historically human. 



Christian faith hopes to find in the supra- 

 mundane or heavenly future of the individual per- 

 sons the completion of what is on earth but frag- 

 mentary, and the harmony of what is on earth 

 discordant. This hope rests partly (a) on the 

 consciousness of the independent super-sensuous 

 reality of the personal life distinct from its 

 sensuous organism; partly and especially (b) on 

 the conviction of our faith that we are destined to 

 perfect likeness to God and fellowship with God, 

 and that this our destination is eternally founded 

 in God, and therefore not to be set aside by any 

 temporal contingency whatever. 



Since the capacity for development which is in- 

 herent in the nature of the human soul cannot be 

 removed witli the death of the body, and since the 

 eternity of the pains of hell may be considered 

 neither psychologically thinkable nor consistent 

 with the all-wise love of God, nor yet corre- 

 spondent to the thought of 1 Cor. xv. 28, there- 

 fore the Protestant doctrine of the stability of the 

 twofold state of departed souls must be trans- 

 formed into the thought of an infinite variety of 

 forms and stages of development beyond the 

 grave in which there remains room for the infinite 

 love to exercise endlessly its educative wisdom. 

 Further, the unbiblical conception of a resurrec- 

 tion of the body of flesh is to be explained accord- 

 ing to the spiritualised ( 1 Cor. xv. 44, also 50th 

 verse) Pauline theory of resurrection bodies, in 

 doing which the speculative theory of the body as 

 the totality of ministering forces organised by the 

 soul itself may be called to our aid. 



For the rest, the true evangelical treatment of 

 the ' last things ' must follow the principle of 

 biblical caution ; and, instead of arbitrarily pictur- 

 ing to ourselves that which is unsearchable, we can 

 content ourselves with the promise that we will be 

 present with the Lord, and that the eternal blessed 

 life, which is begun indeed' already here below, but, 

 under the endless suffering of the world, remains 

 constantly incomplete, will at last reach perfection 

 in the knowledge and love of God. 



See the articles CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY, DEVIL, 

 HEAVEN, IMMORTALITY, MOHAMMED, PRAYER, PURGA- 

 TORY, RESURRECTION ; also the Histories of Dogma 

 of Neander and Hagenbach ; E. White's Life in Christ 

 ( 1846 ) ; Andrew Jukes's Restitution of All Things ( 2d ed. 

 1869); J. Baldwin Brown's Doctrine of Annihilation in 

 the Light of the Gospel of Love, (1875) ; F. N. Oxenham's 

 Catholic Eschatoloyy and Universalism ( 2d ed. 1878 ), and 

 his answer to Pusey. Wlmt is the Truth as to Everlasting 

 Punishment ? (2 parts, 1882) ; H. M. Luckock's After Death 

 (1879) ; W. R. Alger's Critical History of the Doctrine of 

 a Future Life ( 10th ed., with a complete bibliography of 

 the subject, comprising 4977 books relating to the Nature, 

 Origin, and Destiny of the Soul, by Ezra Abbot, Boston, 

 1S80) ; E. H. Plumptre's article ' Eschatology ' in Smith 



and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography, &c. ( vol. 

 ii. 1880), and his Spirits in Prison, and other Studies on 

 the Life after Death (1885); F. W. Farrar's Eternal 

 Hope (1878), and Mercy and Judgment (1881); S. 

 Davidson's Doctrine of Last Things contained in the New 

 2'estament (1882); Th. Kliefoth's Christl. Eschatologie 

 (Leip. 1886); and Professor J. Agar Beet's series, of 

 papers in the Expositor for 1890. 



Hellas. See GREECE. 



Hellebore, a name applied to two distinct 

 genera of plants. The genus to which it more 

 properly belongs, and to which it has belonged 

 since very ancient times, Hellebdrus, is of the 

 natural order Ranunculacese, and is characterised 

 by a calyx of five persistent sepals, often resem- 

 bling petals ; a corolla of eight or ten very short, 

 tubular, honey-secreting petals ; numerous stamens 

 and three to ten pistils ; a leathery capsule, and 

 seeds arranged in two rows. The species are per- 

 ennial herbaceous plants, mostly European, gener- 

 ally with a short root-stock ; the stem mostly leaf- 

 less, or nearly so, but sometimes very leafy ; the 

 leaves more or less evergreen, lobed, the flowers 

 terminal. A familiar example of this genus is the 

 Black Hellebore so called from the colour of its 

 roots or Christmas Rose (H. niger), a favourite 

 in flower-gardens, because its large white flowers 

 which have in recent years been greatly im- 

 proved by florists in point of size and purity of 

 colour are produced in winter. The leaves are 

 all radical ; the stalks generally one-flowered ; the 

 flowers white or tinged with red. Black hellebore 

 formerly enjoyed a higher reputation as a medicinal 

 agent than it now possesses. Melampus is repre- 

 sented as employing it in the treatment of madness 

 centuries before the Christian era. The root is the 

 part used in medicine, and it is imported into 



Christinas Rose (Hdleborus niger). 



Britain from Hamburg, and sometimes from Mar- 

 seilles. It consists of two parts the rhizome or 

 root-stock, and the fibres descending from it. The 

 former is nearly half an inch thick, several inches 

 long, and knotty, with transverse ridges and 

 slight longitudinal striae. The taste is slight 

 at first, then bitter and acrid. It is not much 

 employed at the present day, but it has been 

 found of service ( 1 ) in mania, melancholia, and 

 epilepsy; (2) as an emmenagogue ; (3) in dropsy 

 its action as a drastic purgative, and its stimu- 

 lating effect on the vessels of the liver, rendering 

 it useful ; (4) in chronic skin diseases ; and (5) as 

 an anthelmintic. Ten or fifteen grains of the 

 powdered root act as a sharp purgative. The 



