330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the future differ from those of the present ? Is God variable or par- 

 tial ? Is not a probationary existence here wise ? Could there be vir- 

 tue or vice, happiness or wretchedness, without it ? Could there be 

 virtue or vice under constraint? Would obedience or disobedience 

 that was perfunctory, or a sequence, or of habit, were it possible, be 

 of any moral quality so as to be either pleasing or displeasing to God, 

 or profitable or damaging to the soul ? Or is there any greater proba- 

 bility of falling from virtue hereafter than here ? But virtue is im- 

 possible anywhere without the alternative of vice ; and, since the 

 tendency to repeat is confirmed by repetition, and since virtue only 

 accords with or is agreeable to the soul, is it not probable that the 

 acquired taste for virtue shall continually increase until all other in- 

 clination of the soul shall cease, and virtue shall be loved for itself, 

 and be practiced because it is so loved ? And so vice can only be vice 

 when it can be rejected. It, too, may be pursued to a habit, but it is 

 always hostile to nature, and can never be relished ; so that, since it is 

 unnatural and disagreeable and unnecessary, it is not improbable that 

 it will be resisted and ultimately be superseded by virtue ; for will 

 not the " evil" always "bow before the good" ? This, at least, would 

 be in accord with the order of nature, and could neither minify pen- 

 alty nor reproach law, and would vindicate the divine righteousness 

 in the creation and redemption of man, and be the fullest and the 

 grandest exhibition of the divine wisdom and love to the intelligent 

 universe. 



To compass this end, Christian theology has resorted to purgatory, 

 universalism, restoration, annihilation of the wicked, second probation, 

 and other subterfuges, and has sought in scriptural teaching and in 

 natural processes for a theodicy that would relieve the Creator from 

 the reproach of the eternal punishment of sinners. To a greater or 

 less extent all these schemes to rescue man from the unquenchable fire 

 and the gnawings of the undying worm, or to justify their infliction, 

 are evoked by shame or horror at the extreme severity of the penalty, 

 and express the modifications which human wisdom and tenderness 

 would interpose or substitute. They not only reproach God for in- 

 humanity, but overlook the fact that his law could not be sanc- 

 tioned nor be worthy of respect were its penalties either variable or 

 transient. 



Death — eternal disability — must follow the first and least as well 

 as the last and greatest transgression, and the eternity of its infliction 

 is based on sin and not on continuous sinning. But death does not 

 end life. It is a stage in a process which marks the decay or loss 

 experienced by a wasted moment or a neglected opportunity which 

 never can be recovered, and the beginning of a new opportunity in 

 life, and can be no more reproachful in its recurrence than in its in- 

 cipience. The eternity of the reward and punishment is not only an 

 expression of the sanctity of the law, but of the divine respect for it. 



