NECESSITY OF HELL.

NZ Truth, Issue 98, 4 May 1907, Page 7

NECESSITY OF HELL.

Ada Ward, says Melbourne "Truth," along with the rest of the ranting crowd, appears to think that Hell is an awful place' to take up one's cuarters m for etermity. They endeavour to persuade Humanity that ! Heaven is the right pigeon-hole m the Cosmos, the only pigeon-hole, indeed, that is worth spending hereafter m. Now, >after giving a • little thought to the assertion, "Truth" is not so cocksure as Ada. , It is quite possible that many humans would, on tbe cast, prefer Hell to Heaven. F'rinstance, some people are never happy unless; Ihey are drunk. They see no consoling virtues m sobriety, and absence from an hotel to them means! just as miserable a time as the absence from Ms favourite gospel-grinding house means to a canting snufflebuster. • • • Some people would be dan:aed miserable if it was insisted that they must be good, and by all reports you have to be awfully good m Heaven. Supposing the cherub Sevan had to be dirunk every day m a low pot-house. He would be miserable without a doubt. On the other side, supposing Bill the Beerehewer had to stand m Bevan's pulpit, he would be a most unhapnv sinner, whereas left alone he is happy as a sinner. Under the circumstances, notwithstanding; Ada Ward, we think that Hell is the best place the Almighty could create for those, who need such a place. It is a jilace of happiness for sinners. You take a real vile man or woman ond put Ihem m Heaven, and they will suffer endless torture. They can't stand going to church while they are on earth. They hate the (rood. So much' so that they try to -corrupt those who ate good. They love evil, ard all the evil conseouemciFis of (evil here, and so t ! hev must have it there. .. ■ ». • • Take a man now, who deliberately ruins people m this world, and there are Meaty of suoh pfeople m this W<^rld. Think of a mother uho would sejl her youna; daughter to a man she knows, is false to her own people, simply for money. Could suoh a woman enjoy Heaven? Supposing, of course, that she dies as sl.e has lived, a venial depraved monstrosity ? Would She want a white robe or a harp ?' Heaven would be mindless misery to her. She, with her unregenerate nature, hates the good, here, so she would yonder. You cannot enioy iHeayen unless you are prepared for it. So we ?ay there must be a Hell, as a kindness to the moral Hydes of the submerged world. • 1 9 There ,is good and evil m this world as there is the golden warmth of summer, and the death of cold winter. Some philosopher says that ■good' and. evil are 'germs, while the Lord Bishop the other day was, endeavouring to demonstrate that there were good and -evil spirits. Call them spirits or microbes, as you please. In every human being there is 4he microbe of good and the microbe of evil, and they arc at war each with the other. And if the person will stand by and obey the good microbe, then it glows within him, an! finally, overwhelms 'the -.--evil microbe, and the person becomes all good. The ovil impulses all die away, and the person. , becomes noted,; for the graces' of life, beoomiiug eventually a fit subject for a life m a land where there is no suoh thins as evil known. And that land is Heaven. If, on the contrary, the person- sides with the evil microbe, the good dies out, and the person becomes a moral Hyde, a being m which is no spark of good, and suoh a person is only fit and happy dn a lard y, herein there is nd good, but only evil, and that place is Hell, • '. * • As a rule we mix 'em, like our drinks, and result is a moral drunkenness. Ada Ward has mixed the wine of her life, and there is more vinegar than mead m her composition. She paints Hell very red, and actresses blue, and Methodists white, whereas Hell is a good place for Hellites, and those who like their surroundings to- be 'virile and vioeful. Actresses m the bulk are no better nor are they any worse than their sisters m other spheres, but the same test applied to Methodists, and the Ada Wards of the world show that they are full n f u'ncbaritableness towards their kind, and also selfish m the extreme, since they would dany to many a poor signer all th<j borne comforts of a well-appointed Hell.