"WHERE ARE THE DEAD? A BIBLE STUDY LECTURE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 72, 26 March 1914, Page 2

"WHERE ARE THE DEAD? A BIBLE STUDY LECTURE.

"Where are trie Dead?" formed the subject of a lecture which engaged the attention of a large audience at the Town Hall for close upon an hour and a half last evening. The lecturer was Mr. R. R. Hollister, a young journalist lecturer from New York, who is now touring the world with the object of promoting Bible study along unsectarian lines. He is a fluent speaker, with an excellent address, and, although largely unorthodox in his views, was able last evening to command an excellent hearing. The lecturer said that if the ministers of the various Churches to-day were to be asked. "Where are the dead?" they would no doubt have some difficulty in answering the question. The reason was that the Churches of to-day based their faith upon, the doctrines preached by such men as Luther, Calvin, Knox, and others, and, idolising them, had not progressed. They preached the doctrine of torments after death, which, he maintained, was blasphemous. He thought that the missionaries who went abroad telling the heathen such things would be much better at home. An Indian journalist had told him that, rather than believe that all those who .had not heard the name of Jesus were condemned to hell for all time, he would go to hell and live, with his loved ones than go to heaven and live with a God who ordained such a scheme of things. That Indian, he considered was logical There was no reason for them to be nonsensical in teaching the truths of the Bible. They should preach a God of love and equity, and the only safe course for them to pursue was to go to the Book, and in the light of the twentieth century knowledge, ascertain what it had to say. Quoting the Bibje, he argued that with the fall of Adafn his descendants were giving dying imperfect organisms, and that with the death of Christ recovery from the death condit2on_ for mankind was provided. If Christ died for every man as he did, then every man, he held, must benefit; if not, then Christ died in vain. Christ when on earth said he had the keys of hell, and the speaker argued that with those keys Christ would unlock the gates of that great pnson-house, and call upon all to come forth. When man died he went into oblivion, but his organisms and individuality were preserved in God's memory, and were re-created by Him at His will. Mr. Hollister will lecture at the Town Hall upon "Hell : Two Ways Out," or, as he explained last night, upon "the resurrection of life and the resurrection of damnation."