"It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the question which we raise is not respecting the duration of future punishment, but respecting its nature. We are to show that exclusion from all life is a punishment, and that this is the revealed punishment of the lost. If it be so, then we may at once admit the words 'eternal,' 'everlasting,' and similar phrases, used to indicate the duration of the final doom, as denoting an absolute eternity; we shall waste no time in efforts to reduce their significance in the least." (Debt and Grace, p. 160.)

A

Nor will the author attempt any new modes of interpretation, but admits "that the obvious sense of words is prima facie their true sense." Is not this a virtual surrender of the case? The punishment of rebellion against God is everlasting. Granted. What is its "nature"? Personal and conscious suffering is a part of it, by the instinctive verdict of mankind. And can this nature be evolved without taking account of the element of duration? The "duration" is essential to the "nature." convict is sentenced to fifty years in the state-prison. The term of his incarceration as well as the fact makes up the burden of that judgment. Is an infliction for an hour or a minute the same thing intrinsically as for half a century, or forever? But what is the idea of endlessness as applied to the punishment of sinners? Certainly, that of continuance without termination. Continuance of what? Of nothing, if the soul lapses into non-existence. Grant that the annihilating stroke were a punishment of terrific magnitude. It cannot be a perpetual striking. There is a glaring impropriety in speaking of a cessation of all consciousness and life as a never-ceasing endurance of punishment, whether of inward remorse or of positive pains.

Space precludes a quotation of the Biblical representations on this subject. Readers of Scripture are aware how often the doom of the unrighteous is declared, under every form of literal and figurative language, to be endless without qualification. Pages might be filled with these texts, singly asserting this truth, or giving it in yet clearer force as contrasted with the perpetual bliss of the saints. Without consuming exegetical paper or patience, we are content to ask, if the obviously designed and commonly understood meaning of these texts will

allow, without a violent wrench, the fact of an absolute destruction of Satan and all unpardoned spirits? We set the uninspired paragraph above cited over against a single statement of Christ; "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal" and request it to be read once more in the light of this verse, as a test of its truth. That demands the sinner's "exclusion from all life" existence as "the revealed punishment of the lost." On the contrary, these strong words of Jesus put emphasis on the immortal prolongation of the doom they threaten, while the other class of terms used by the sacred writers concerning the wicked -destruction, death, shall perish, be cut off has a competent interpretation in the fearful truth of a spiritual undoing and desolation without the affix of a literal extinguishment of the soul itself, whether at death or ages beyond it. There is no verbal, textual necessity for the dogma of annihilation. There is a verbal, textual necessity for just the antagonist doctrine, in the terms which the soul's Maker has employed to set forth its endlessness of penal sorrows if unsaved. In this channel of exposition, Scripture flows freely. In the other, it is a forced, a resisting stream, and comes to many a place where it must be canalled through very stubborn rock. We deem this sufficient to settle the controversy as a question of Revelation (and this it mainly must be ;) far better for all practical purposes than to appeal to thick volumes of citations from grammars and lexicons and commentaries on either side, whether heterodox or orthodox. How next to everlastingly these can be drawn out, our bookshelves furnish fatiguing proof and illustration.

By the way, if such citations are not made with more of scholarly care and common fairness than not a few of those which make up this patch-work, they can be of small use to any one who wishes to know what the authorities would say. In some of these excerpts from Olshausen, Barnes, and other familiar authors, we have been much reminded of the besetting sin of our recent telegraph operators. It is hardly the right thing to make a witness affirm just what he does not intend to, through this art of putting asunder what the writer joined. together. It is more fitting for a lawyer's special pleading than for a theological investigation.

The necessities of the annihilator are painful. His exegesis is often like dragging a tree top foremost. He now and then comes so near contradicting himself, that it amounts quite to this privilege of erratic, shall we add, unsettled mental action? Then, the thought skims off on a swallow-flight into a tenuous airiness, where it is impossible to grasp its shadowy form or spirit. Here is an instance of both. Encountering the fact of the "resurrection of the unjust" he writes:

"It is hard to believe that they are raised up by a miracle that ends in their destruction, or that accomplishes nothing but a judgment which in this view must appear simply vindictive. If they have no immortality why are their slumbers disturbed?" (D. and G. p. 263.) Wherefore, indeed? What then is the reply to this very sensible interrogatory? Something which we confess a want of perspicacity to see, even as a tree walking.

"Now the Glad Tidings of the Redemption, quickening and invigorating the soul with new life, may so far repair the injury done it in the Fall, that even the unbelieving who derive many benefits therefrom in this life, may not altogether perish in the bodily death." (D. and G. pp. 263, 264.)

Is this restorationism; or what is it thus resuscitating to a partial or perfect animation the almost drowned in that devouring flood of stagnant oblivion? We can find no intelligible

answer.

So far as the force of words extends, the position now taken holds substantially of that group of gospel representations which makes Christ the author of "eternal life." At the risk of being thought superficial or disrespectful (possibly both) we deem it enough to reply to "The Scriptural Argument for Immortality through Christ alone" — that this phrase "eternal life" does not necessarily embrace the idea of imparting the principle of a continued existence. It is, on the contrary, the common term for a regenerate and sanctified state, as "death" denotes the condition of an unrenewed transgressor. To name the authorities which are with us here would be to catalogue the chief guides in sacred philology. The life thus spoken of finds accordingly a valid signification in the securing to men, through Christ's

atonement and Spirit, a salvation from sin and woe.

Eternal

or everlasting life of which Jesus is the dispenser is an endless holiness and blessedness. This is his "unspeakable gift." To take the word life as signifying existence itself is neither grammatically demanded nor warranted. The relation of Christ to the fact of our eternal being is exactly taught us by the Apostle — that He "brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." He republished an obscured and fading truth; set it in an illumination where it could never more be eclipsed. He reaffirmed man's immortality, and disclosed therewith the only method of a holy and blessed life to those already endowed with this costliest of inheritances. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." This experimental knowledge is the life thus eternal — an everlasting redemption, and reunion with God, from a doom of perpetual guilt and despair. Thus in Isaiah:-"By the knowledge of him shall my righteous servant justify many." Eternal justification is eternal life. So is "Christ our Life," beyond which sense no Scripture requires us to push its testimony.

There is another thought just here protruding. Christ's proffered recovery to life only becomes ours as we freely accept its grace. If then the boon of endless being inheres in this grace, we have the power and the responsibility of making ourselves immortal- of literally "creating a soul under the ribs of death." An act of choice in us breathes a never-dying spirit into a mere perishable mould of clay. This does indeed fulfil the tempting promise of the serpent to our first mother; "ye shall be as gods"-investing us with truly deific functions. But again, the actually saved are virtually saved in the electing decree of God from before the foundation of the world. Can we avoid asking whether their endowment with immortality dated at that pristine period, they thus being immortal from the first though not yet born or pardoned; and did they then, consequently, immortalize themselves? Or, is it at the moment of their regeneration that this gift is granted, so making the electing decree a very uninfluential transaction? The author is not successful in clearing these problems. The theory which challenges our faith to its dismal embraces is responsible for

these queries, and for the palpable absurdities which they suggest.

Our intention was neither a detailed review of the treatises indicated under the title of this article, nor an exhaustive discussion of the subject in hand; but rather a treatment of such prominent points of the doctrine of an endless life, by whomsoever and on whatever scale denied, as our limits might permit. We would ever handle a theme like this with proper seriousness, even when attempting to wring off the neck of fallacious and damaging errors. The denial of immortal being to a part alone is a less abhorrent idea than the promiscuous dying out or extinguishment of all human souls. Yet we regard the one as groundless as the other, and both to be utterly reprobated. It is strange to us that any one who knows what is the consciousness of a rational life should wish to throw into this "blooming world such an immeasurable grave-stone, that no time can lift." One would think that the most zealous advocate of that nightmare-fantasy must confess with the yielding Carlson, in the beautiful colloquy of Jean Paul; "I can bear no annihilation but my own! My heart is of your opinion; my head will shortly follow."

ARTICLE IV.

THE PLACE OF ROMANCE IN LITERATURE.

IT is the object of this paper to show the place held by Romance in the general field of Literature, to point out, as far as may be, its distinguishing characteristics, the elements in our human nature of which it is the representative, and which are therefore the ground of its popularity. We shall find, if we succeed, an element of Romance, potential or real, in each individual, not less than in the collective life of humanity; the whole having the essential characteristics of the individual, only standing out in clearer view, and so becoming the proper object of scientific inquiry and investigation.