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50. Christians will (after long forbearance) have in the coming 
generation to refute superstitions, which yet linger (not in 
(Ecumenical Councils, but) in the indistinct conceptions and 
justly aroused fears of the (Ecumenical conscience of the popu- 
lace, in Christendom and Heathendom alike. The Beatific vision 
of true saints must yet fill our hearts, and stir our longings for 
the true heaven. The “Continuity of vengeance” on each 
soul of man by eternal physical torture, “ visions of hell” — 
(taught whether by Luis of Granada or by John Bunyan), 
must be openly and finally shown to be, at least beyond the 
definite teaching of our Revelation, both under the Old Testa- 
ment and the New. 
What God will do with the moral failures of His Creation 
is a moral inquiry deeply overshadowed by clouds Andforget- 
which stir all our anxieties. The thought of it moral 
must be preceded by a view of what a Moral ivorld world is. 
is ? and what Probation must be ? even if we would as much as 
know our own meaning. 
As our authors havenoethical decisions very clearly announced, 
we must be content at present to muse as to the possible con- 
nection between Responsibility and a thinly physical hereafter 
which is inevitable for all. We wait for their further views in 
the realm of thought and morals. We point out, that their 
theology is even more “ hazy ” than their theory of matter. 
But while in science they speak as masters, in theology they 
have yet to become learners. Their theories, at all events, as 
to Heaven and its Beatitudes, or as to the world of the lost, 
are not such as Christianity has taught us. Simply in reply, 
we say, that we think we know that God is our Father — 
that He is “not far from every one of us,” and that “in 
His presence is fulness of joy” to all who “draw nigh to 
Him.” If we “arise and go to our Fathei’,” it is our view 
that He receives us, clothed in our immortality, to His man- 
sions of joy hereafter. No Physical continuity here will ulti- 
mately hold us back from Him. It is God that man’s “heait 
thirsts for,” as St. Augustine, echoing the Psalmist, expresses 
it. It would change our whole religion to put God for ever 
“ afar off.” The longing for immortality itself would be gone. 
It would be a shock, that (to use an expressive phrase), “ would 
break the heart” of the world, to never “know the Father.” 
It would change everything to the Christian, were it to be 
discovered that Heaven Avould not be the “ Vision of God ” for 
the “ pure in heart.” 
51. Heaven, as Christ taught it, is nearer than our authors 
