Is There a Material Hell ?

Southland Times, Issue 19036, 2 May 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

Is There a Material Hell ?

A remarkable sermon was preached in London in -February by Canon Page Roberts on the subject of Reward mid Punishment, lie selected as his text the phrase from St. Peter's Epistle, "Pass the time of your sojourning here with fear." He *aid there wa9 a fashion among people outside the churches to laugh nt the idea of Christian philosophy, uk based upon the theory of reward and punishment. If people were in the habit of thinking, it would, perhaps-, be unnecessary to refute so absurd a charge However, people were not in the hubit of thinking, but of repeating, and therefore it was necessary to make some sort of reply to the taunt, Everything was based upon the principle of reward and punishment. All actions hud their consequences, either good or evil ; ami the good were rewards, the evil results were punishments. It was not in the ideas of reward and punishment that tihe weak point lay, but in the form which they took. Crude and rude ideas were a necessary stage in the development of all theories. In science emd philosophy such ideas had roigned supreme. So in Christianity. But the ideas which were suited to a lower stage of civilisation were, in the case of science, put aside when the higher stage was reached. It was only in theology that man refused to accept progress. The preaching of the early fathers and of the monks of the middle ages had been entirely of the wrath to come antt of the day of judgjment. The Sistino picture of Christ at the day of judgment was a conception almost jhihuman in its 'cruelty,- The Reformation hiul do no much to deepen the belief in a material hell fire, and had made the bottomless pit even more .engulfing. Latimer had not hesitated to condemn the most perfect men of pagan times to the pain anil torment of hell fire because they had not known Christianity. The Roman Catho- ] lie Church, more human in its sympathy, had created, whether rightly* or wrongly,

a purgatory. Tho Italian epic had A purgatory as ■well as a heaven ami hell. Our own sublime "English epic hud nothing between eternal bliss mid t>i>d-k-H'- tormctit. It might bo urgod that such idens wero only night march of the

past. Jt did not look us if tlii;* wcru no when they read the gruesome pictures of fire and torment which l)r Xuwman had drawn for the crowds v.at came under his. spell at St. Mary's. Oxford. That conception of fiod which could believe liini capable of casting aside-* His poor, weak, erring creatures promiscuously — nay, even contemptuously — was a libel — an abominable lie. All honour (o tlio authorities* ut Wo*;, mint. let' Abbey "ho had tho courage to suppress the dMuuftlory ciaetses at tiie Atbanasian

creed. For those who had boon bought u|> in a lurid belief in the terrors of boll there was always the dread that, although now in tho full vigour of health and strength, they might fearlessly face the end, yet when advancing ago brought with it declining henlth, tho memory, going hack to the 'days of childhood, might revert to its early lessons, and tin- end might close in upon n scene of terror ami affright He would beseech I hem to advance in perfect trust, and in rnliamo upon tho goodness of God. to whom prayer wns offerer! us "Our Father."