would put it. And, on the other hand, as to the final lot of 
the lost, we plainly affirm (and we know no more) that Retribu- 
tion will be morally complete. The bodily details ol de- 
moralizing infliction, which some delight to dwell on, are, we 
affirm, no part of the Revelation as such. 
The “Perdition,” and the “Eternal Punishment,” are facts 
— moral facts ; but not physically set forth to us by authority. 
Conscience, after all, is the darkest Revealer of the certainty 
of the irreparable future of a Probation that has finally failed. 
The x'ise and close — the origin and the end of evil, belong to 
the fact of Moral Agency. 
In making a moral world, God had the possibility of its 
failures as well as triumphs to deal with. But “Eternal evil,” 
as professed by our authors, is, thank God, no necessary part 
of our faith as children of immortality. As moral philosophers, 
and as professing the Christianity of 1800 years, we are com- 
pelled to reject our authors’ view of the essential eternity of 
evil, when they say — with fearful consistency, — that evil is 
woven into the essential texture of the garments with which 
the Eternal God, (our Father,) has clothed Himself. On 
their theory it is ! 
52. There are four doctrines, we may state, variously held, 
as to the Punishment of sin hereafter. First, 
ries°of Future that the sinner will be destroyed, i.e. annihilated; 
Punishment. seconc []y j that there will, after a time of vengeance, 
be “Restitution of all things”; thirdly, that there will be 
eternal, physical or sensible torture; and lastly, Everlasting 
Punishment of a final kind, but adjusted to Moral Agency. 
— On these theories this is not the place to enlarge. The 
conclusions expressed by our authors seem distinct from all 
these. We are free to accept the last of the four. 
Nor need we speculate on the modes and conditions of Im- 
mortality; for it is probably useless. Certainly the immortality 
which our authors truly say was longed for always by all men, 
was not what they describe. No one, we may safely say, ever 
longed to be an eternal molecule in a luminiferous ether more 
and more refined. “We,” according to His promise, “ look for 
new Heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous- 
ness,” — seems an entirely different idea. Such a future at any 
time contemplated by us has an elevating influence on both 
mind and heart. It recognizes our Personality, but pro- 
vides for it a real sphere in the life to come. It sets before us 
the vision of changes which even Physical Science must own 
may contain a sought-for solution ; and yet it has a Moral 
