light for sustenance.

There is still another instance of the use of this phrase. The reader may examine it, and determine whether it can be referred to a future life.

"For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest [sheol] hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and the terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs." (Deut. xxxii. 22—25.) I have quoted thus much, that the reader may the more readily perceive its inapplicability to the spiritual state. And yet it is not very uncommon for learned ministers to quote certain detached parts of it with such a reference! This text expresses what should be the fate of the Jewish nation when it should " forget God;" and such shall be the fate of all nations similarly guilty.

And now, reader, need more be added for your conviction concerning the meaning of the term sheol? If it properly refers to a place of ceaseless suffering, is it not surprising that it is not once used in the bible in express reference to such a place? Yet such is the fact as must be acknowledged by every candid biblical student. Observe, this is the only hell of which the world knew any thing authentically for 4000 years! If there be any truth in the modern dogina concerning an infernal prison in a future world, is it not very remarkable that Jehovah did not disclose the momentous fact to his covenant people, amidst the many threatnings which he denounced against them in case they should relapse into idolatry? It really seems to me incredible, that a circumstance of such immense consequence should have been kept secret-seeing a truth of this nature is of such vast concern to mankind, and their utter ignorance respecting it for so many ages, is certainly no inconsiderable evidence that no such place exists. The same remarks are applicable to hades; the most striking instance of its figurative application is in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. I have already noticed this at some length, and shown that it cannot be understood as belonging to a future world without gross impropriety; because the party represented therein as having gone to hades, (or rather as having been buried

in hades, as Dr. Clarke maintains is the literal rendering,) is spoken of, nevertheless, as still possessing all his bodily organs, and as subject to material influences; which proves that the parable does not relate to the world of spirits, but to the present life; and such also is most manifestly the case with all the Savior's parables.

The state literally referred to in these terms is doomed to final destruction. "I will ransom them from the power of [sheol] the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; 0 [sheol] grave, I will be thy destruction!" (Hos. xiii. 14.) Paul plainly intimates the destruction of hades in his treatise on the resurrection; for this is then to be included in the universal overthrow of all the enemies to human purity and happiness hence he exclaims, "O hades, where is thy victory!" (1 Cor. xv. 55.) It is also intimated in the 20th chapter of Revelation, under the figure of being "cast into the lake of fire." It were absurd to attach the idea of torment to the phrase lake of fire here, for death and hades cannot suffer torment; and since the tenor of inspiration is clear as to their final extinction, it is but rational to understand the passage under notice as containing an allegorical representation of that event.

Thus much for sheol and hades. Is it not surprising that these evident, these indisputable bible facts, require, at this late date, to be disclosed to the English reader? For what have men been studying divinity for eighteen centuries? For what have splendid colleges and churches been erected, and millions on millions of money been expended for the business of religious instruction? if, after all, mankind are kept in utter ignorance regarding bible truths of the most important character, aud very nearly affecting their happiness and moral interests! "The wicked shall be turned into hell." From these words how oft has been inculcated the horrid dogina, that there is a vast furnace of fire beyond the confines of time, in which the deathless spirit shall be tormented for its present crimes after it leaves the body, for inconsumable ages! And shall such also be the fate of entire nations? for the above text includes in the same doom, "all the nations that forget God." Ah! the preacher finds it impolitic to shock the credulity of men, by portraying damnation on a scale of such magnitude as this; and he very prudently, therefore, leaves the latter clause of the text without an application. He is careful, also, not to inform his

hearers that David had himself been in this hell, as well as Jonah ; and that neither of these were under the necessity of dying in order to arrive thereat. We will now pass to the consideration of a different word.

Gehenna. This term refers literally to a valley near Jerusalem, where, formerly, Moloch or Baal was worshipped; it was also called Tophet, and the valley of Hinnom. It used to be the scene of a most cruel species of idolatry, where children were made to pass alive through the fire to a grim deity. This odious worship was abolished (at least in this place) by Josiah, king of Judahı. "And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Moloch." (2 Kings xxiii. 10.) In order to pollute the place more effectually, it was fixed on for the public execution of criminals, whose bodies were permitted to lie there unburied. Thither also was conveyed all manner of filth from the city, so that it became the most loathsome place conceivable. In later times it became necessary, in order to prevent a pestilence, to keep up a continual fire, for the purpose of consuming the putrid matter thus collected. To this fire, and to the worms which continually bred in this place, reference is had in the expression, "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

That the term Gehenna primarily refers to this valley, is universally admitted by the learned; they pretend, to be sure, that it came to be used in later times with reference to the infernal regions; which, indeed, is true enough; for it is so understood, at present, by most Jews, and a majority of Christians. But, how late were the times when it came to be so used? This question is one of some importance in this discussion; was it so used in the days of Christ? Oh, what strenuous efforts have been made to establish the affirmative of this question! The proof chiefly relied on to this end, is that of certain Jewish talmudic writings; but when the antiquity of these is inquired into impartially, it is found that they do not go back to the times of the Savior by several centuries, (that is, those targums which speak of Gehenna at all.) But suppose it were otherwise; suppose that these rabbinical scholiæ could be traced back to the earliest date claimed for them, it would then seem singular enough that a hell should have been in existence for forty centuries without a name;

and that no suitable designation was found for it until one was borrowed from a notoriously loathsome valley, adjoining the city of Jerusalem! Does this seem probable? Ninety-nine hundredths of mankind, for more than a hundred generations, had passed through a brief life of earthly misery, to a world of unceasing burnings; and yet that world was without a name!

I confess there are a few texts, which to the common reader, with prejudices in its favor, appear, at first sight, to sanction this use of the word Gehenna. I therefore propose subjecting all the passages of this character to a candid investigation, begging the reader to bear in mind that this is a question in which the divine wisdom and goodness are deeply concerned, and that in consequence we ought to form our conclusions with the utmost caution, since in them is involved no less a decision than, whether it shall be the fate of unconceived myriads of our race to endure the wrath of God through future endless ages.

"But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire." (Matt. v. 22.) I cannot do better than to quote a commentary on this text from Alexander Campbell, who surely will not be suspected of wishing to refute the dogma which I am opposing, for he is at this time engaged in a strenuous effort to maintain it.

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Thompson translates Matt. v. 22, thus: Whosoever is angry with his brother without cause, shall be liable to the sentence of the judges; and whoever shall say to his brother, Raca, (a contemptuous word,) shall be liable to the sentence of the Sanhedrim; and whoever shall say, Morch, (a reproachful word,) shall be liable (to be sentenced) to the vale of fire,' or, to the Gehenna of fire.

"In the common translation of this verse, there is a confounding of things present and future, of things human and divine, that badly comports with the wisdom and dignity of the speaker. What affinity exists between judges, a council, and hell-fireWhy should one expression of anger only subject a person to human judges, and another subject him to hell-fire, in the usual sense of these words? Now, if the terms in this verse conveyed

the same meaning to us which they conveyed to the audience which the Savior at that time addressed, we would discover a propriety and beauty in them which is not manifest in the common translations of them. The fact is, that the allusions in this verse are all to human institutions, or customs among the Jews; and the judges, the Sanhedrim, and the hell-fire here introduced, are all human punishments. Parkhurst observes, on the phrase Gehenna tou puros, (a Gehenna of fire,) that, in its outward and primary sense, it relates to that dreadful doom of being burnt alive in the valley of Hinnom.

"The sentence of the city councils, which extended in certain instances, to strangling a person, is one of the allusions. These councils were composed of twenty-three judges, and were an inferior court amongst the Jews. The Sanhedrim, or council of seventytwo senators, whose sentence authorized stoning to death, and which was the superior court of that people, constitutes the second allusion. The burning a person alive in the vale of Hinnom, is the third. By these allusions he teaches his audience that anger in the heart, anger expressed in the way of contempt, and anger expressed with manifest malice, would, under his reign, subject them to such diversities of punishment, as they were wont to apportion to atrocious actions, according to their views of criminality.

"The following translation of this verse is expressive of the full sense of the original. 'Whosoever is vainly incensed against his brother, shall be obnoxious to the sentence of the judges, (the court of twenty-three;) whoever shall say to his brother, (in the way of contempt,) Shallow-brains, shall be obnoxious to the Sanhedrim; and whosoever shall say, Apostate wretch, (the highest expression of malice,) shall be obnoxious to the Gehenna of fire,' or to being burned alive in the vale of Hinnom. This translation is in substance approved by Adam Clarke, and other critics of respectability."

"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if