LECTURE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume III, Issue 211, 17 February 1882, Page 2

LECTURE.

On Wednesday evening, a lecture waß delivered at the Town Hall by the Rev. Le Menant, Dcs Chesnais, S.M., in aid of the funds of the Hawera Catholic Church. His Worship the Mayor presided, and proceedings were opened by one or two vocal aud instrumental pieces very tastefully rendered by lady and gentlemen amateurs.

The Chairman then introduced the lecturer, saying he had no doubt the audience would enjoy the lecture, the subject of which was " A Glimpse of a Dreary Land."

The Rev. Father was well received on coming forward. He said his hearers had no doubt read astonishing stories , by romancers, of trips to the moon, to the bottom of the ocean, and other impossible places, and though he did not ask them to travel to those places that evening, he f-hould invite them to listen to something about a " dreary land," the precise locality of which no one could determine, but which was generally referred to as the place " bi'low," in oontra-distinction to the bright and happy land, the location of which was generally supposed to be " above." He examined the terms, which in various tongues, are equivalent to the English word "hell," and showed that either in their literal or derived sense, they represented a place in which the wicked were tormented by fire. The French, Latin, Greek, Italian, and Hebrew terms were all quoted, and their derivation explained, the most remarkable perhaps being that of the Hebrew word Gehenna, which, strictly speaking, meant the Valley of Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom), where sacrifices to Moloch were offered, and where refuse of all sorts was subsequently oast, for the consumption of which fires were kept constantly burning. It had been denied only lately by a learned Rabbi, in an adjoining colony, that there was any such place. For centuries that idea had been fondly cherished by some ; but all great thinkers who had given much attention to the subject had come to an opposite conclusion. Plato, Lucretius, and Cicero had each, at first, denied the existence of such a place, but ultimately became convinced that they were wrong ; and the stories of the sufferings, for their misdeeds, of Ixion, Prometheus, and Tantalus, though in themselves fabulous, testified abundantly to the fact that the best minds of early days had no doubt as to there being a place of punishment for the wicked. The supporters of the nohell, or limited hell theory, asked, could God, who was represented as being merciful and loving, condemn to everlasting punishment beings who had sinned during a short life on earth ? He replied that God was always just, and that people who offended against His law must be punished ; but at the same time he had no doubt that there were degrees of punishment, so that suffering would be in just proportion to the nature and extent of sin. A. man who committed but one murder, or who got drunk but once, would receive only one-hundredth part of the punishment awarded to the man who had committed a hundred murders or got drunk a hundred times. So a man might lessen his punishment by doing good works. A sinner would not be able to enter heaven by reason of his good works, but he might so minimise his punishment by good works as to be as comfortable as it was possible to be in a very uncomfortable place. So, on the other hand, a man who was good enough to be saved, but had done very few good works would enjoy heaven in a very Bmall degree as compared with a man who had been busy in good works. In this way God would puuish or reward in each case almost | in exact proportion to a man's deserts, but His mercy was such that He would never mete out quite as much punishment as was deserved ;or withold a full measure of reward. But the punishment would certainly go on eternally. Those j who argued otherwise must bo prepared to admit that heaven would not be of eternal duration, because the word " everlasting" was used in the same sense both as regards heaven and hell. People who accepted the eternity of heaven could not but accept the doctrine of eternal hell — a doctrine taught by the Holy Scriptures and the church from time immemorial. As to whether the fires of hell would be material or spiritual, he declined to offer an opinion, but whatever they were they would infliot most horrible torment without killing the victim. Hell-fire would differ from earthly fire by being non-con-suming, and by not requiring fuel to keep it alive. If asked how could anything live in fire, he would reply that if God could preserve animal life under ground, or in the sea, the element of fire might also be made habitable. In faot there had already been discovered by the aid of powerful lenses an animal resembling a' dragon flying about in fire, and the greater the heat the more aotive the animal appeared to be. There was the practical aspect of the subject, as it affected each of those present, but as he had come there not to sermonize, but in a lecture to oppose his views to those

expressed by a learned man in another" colony, lie-Aid not propose to go into that. He would only say that Hell was a reality, and that he hoped none of them would meet in that " dreary land."