78 All Suffering tends to an end. CHAP. 



also sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall 

 reap also bountifully." 



But it does not follow that the Divine anger 

 which is to be reaped by sinners will be continued 

 without end and without hope. The experience of 

 nature is that 



All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed ; 2 



and the horrible thought of vengeance which has 

 no purpose beyond itself, and of suffering which 

 tends neither to heal the sin nor to end the existence 

 of the sinner, is contrary to all the analogy of nature. 

 So far as our experience reaches, all pain tends to 

 destroy life, and consequently to bring about its own 

 extinction. 



But is there hope in a future life for the rejected 

 of the present dispensation? On this question 

 nature speaks with an uncertain voice. The most 

 obvious inference from the analogy of nature is that 

 they share the fate of wasted seeds ; but obvious 

 analogies may be only superficial. We have seen 

 that in mental and spiritual as well as in merely 

 organic life, improvement begins from elect races and 

 individuals. But the analogy is incomplete ; the im- 

 provement is propagated in a totally different way 

 in the two cases. In organic life it is by natural 

 descent ; and even if it were otherwise possible, any 

 improvement of the rejected races is excluded by the 

 fact that their destruction is needed in order to make 



1 2 Cor. ix. 6. - Byron. 



