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Show The Doctrine of Hell ' . (New Zealand Tablet.) . In the course of a Protestant mission on a large scale, which has; just been concluded in. Christchurch, the Rev. Dr. Torrey, who was conducting the mission, mis-sion, happened to intimate that he was fully convinced that there was a hell, that its torments were everlasting and that the fire with which the wicked I are there punished is a material fire, j The statement was at once vehemently ! challenged and a vigorous controversy in the papers took place, in which the j doctrine of everlasting punishment, and especially of punishment by a material fire, was somewhat fiercely assailed. So far as we know, the Catholic church was not especially referred to in-the" correspondence, but to have remained silent "while a belief which is included in the defined articles offait.h was being be-ing publicly attacked would have been disloyal to truth, and accordingly Father Fa-ther Le Menant des Chenais, S. M., thought it well to deliver a special lecture lec-ture by way of explanation and vindi cation of the Catholic doctrine on the subject. After showing, the universality, even amongst pagan peoples, of a belief in a place of future punishment for the wicked, the lecturer proceeds to state the teaching's-of the church, carefully distinguishing- :what .is of faith about hell and what rests on tradition and the opinion of learned theologians and doctors. doc-tors. "The." .church." "'s4ys Father Le Menant,; "has defined "..only two things concerning hell, namely: (1) -That there is a -hell 'for- the 'punishment of the wicked, and. (2) that hell is eternal and its torments, whatever- their nature may be, will never come to an end. Other questions," he' adds, "where is hell situated?: What is the nature of the pains of hell? What are we to understand un-derstand by the fire of hell? Is it material ma-terial or not? These and other, such questions have never been defined by the church, and are' to be studied by the arguments of the Fathers and learned doctors, and the traditions of the early Christians; but they form no part of the Catholic faith,- and may be examined and judged by the strength of the arguments which are brought forward to elucidate them." That the fire of hell is a material fire though, of course, different from earthly fire is, he explains, "the most common and almost certain opinion" in the church; that it is a mere metaphorical metaphor-ical fire "we are not forbidden to believe, be-lieve, but this is by far the least probable prob-able opinion.". . The thought of souls suffering forever and ever in hell is undoubtedly a very awful one, and the difficulties it suggests sug-gests have never been more generally and keenly felt than at the present time. We turn, therefore, with interest to that portion of Father Le Menant's lecture which deals with this aspect of the question, and his.. vindication of God's justice is so much to the point that we quote the passage in full: "But how," he asks, "can the eternity of hell's torments be reconciled with God's infinite goodness? What proportion propor-tion is there between a crime which lasts but a moment and everlasting sufferings? In the first place, let me remark that the punishment of a crime Is never measured by the length of time it takes to perpetrate it. Does it take a long time to pull the trigger of a revolver. and shoot an enemy? Does it require much time to strike a match and apply it to a fuse connected with a harrei of eunnowder and blow a whole city to atoms? Or to plunge a knife into the heart of the person we hate? Or to put a few drops of prussic acid in a teacup? Yet if anyone be convicted of anything of the kind, he is cast into p'risoo,' deprived of his riches and of his liberty, separated from all.his friends and sentenced to hard labor for life, or even put to death; and- in this we see nothing excessive; we think it right to cut off forever from all intercourse with society those found guilty of such an offense. Now this is exactly what God does. He keeps forever away from him and the company of his Blessed Mother and the holy angels and saints, those who are unworthy to go to paradise. In the second place, let me remark that, be the punishment of hell what it may, it is in exact proportion ; to the guilt of each. All those who go to hell will remain imprisoned forever, but although their captivity .will be eternal, the pains they will endure will be finite and in perfect proportion to their guilt. If a sinner should die with but one mortal sinhe" will suffer only for that oncsin; his .punishment will be the smallest possible in 'that place of misery, only it will never have an end If a sinner has ten, a hundred, a thousand mortal sins.. his sufferings in hell for all eternity will be exactly In proportion to the number ana enormity of his faults. Briefly put. the following are the points which should be kept in mind by way of mitigation of thcawfulness and mystery of the doctrine of eternal hell. (1) There are degrees of punishment in hell, and the punishment meted out to every soul is. only, in proportion to its actual guilt, or it may, as Father Le Menant has pointed out, .be even somewhat some-what less than his :been really deserved. de-served. (2) Only those are condemned to eternal banishment from God's presence pres-ence who die utterly separated from him by deliberate and, grievous unre-pented unre-pented sin.i. e., who are to the last wilful and impenitent rebels .against the Divine -Majesty. (3) No even ap- proximately piuuauic.....u.. "" formed of the lost or of the proportion propor-tion which they bear to the rest of the race. It is to be remembered that, as a popular couplet puts it, while The lamp of life holds on to burn, The vilest sinner may return; and though no one who was not spiritually spirit-ually insane would place his hope of salvation on a deathbed repentance, yet it is not for us to place a limit on the number of those who avail themselves o the opportunity afforded by a merciful merci-ful and loving God of repenting at last and dying after all in peace with him. The case of the fox-hunting squire who was suddenly cut off and of whom it was said, Between the stirrup and the ground, He mercv sought and mercy found, is probably by no means a solitary one. (4) Last, and most important of all, the church has always firmly held and taught that God desires, the salvation of all and that not a single soul is ever condemned unless he has first bestowed be-stowed upon it sufficient grace and full opportunity for securing a life of eternal eter-nal happiness with himself. In other words, it is the sinner himself, and not God, who really condemns the soul to the pains of-hell. Remembering always that man has been endowed with free will and must be left to make the final choice himself, the whole truth on this subject so far as mere mortal knowledge knowl-edge of it can go, may be fitly summed up in Cardinal Manning's words, that "no soul is lost whom infinite wisdom, infinite power and infinite love can save." |