Truth, my beloved, never changes; it is always the same. What was true 1900 years ago, is true to-day; what is true to-day, will be true 1900 years to come. And this is emphatically so with regard to heavenly truth. There is no new revelation in religion. What the Bible taught of old, it teaches now; we have no new Bible. The Christian faith, like its Founder, is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Thank God that it is so; that among the ever-changing things of earth, the constantly fluctuating and shifting ideas and opinions of men, firmer than the Rock of Gibraltar, more solid than the mountains, there stands the Word of our God. And this pertains also to the doctrine which this day's Gospel prominently sets before us, the doctrine of future punishment. It is only recently that the public prints quoted the minister of a prominent church as saying: "Modern Christianity has happily grown away from the old traditional doctrine of hell. The Church no longer believes in a place of literal fire and brimstone, into which all unbelievers are cast for an eternity of torment. Even the most rigid orthodoxy allows wide latitude of belief in the problem of future punishment." Such utterances are very prevalent, and have caused untold confusion of thought. The matter, however, is very simple. It is not a question of what some certain minister thinks, however prominent he may be; neither are we to be guided by what modern Christianity thinks, for modern Christianity ought not think and believe differently from ancient Christianity, since Christianity ought to be ever the same; nor are we concerned what was the old traditional doctrine, since tradition is not, nor has it ever been, a criterion for us. The only determining factor in this, as in all articles of our religious belief, is, What saith the Scripture? Nor may it be superfluous, in approaching the subject of to-day's instruction, to warn against another element, which is sentimentality. Sentiment in its place and sphere is noble and good; but it must remain within its place and sphere. When it comes into conflict with God's teaching, or when it sets itself against the teachings of God's Word, and, because it cannot think or feel how a loving and righteous God could do or permit certain things, then sentiment degenerates into sickly sentimentality, becomes ignoble and sinful. We must never allow our emotion to outrun our sober reason, and, least of all, to set itself against the statements of religion and the arrangements of a holy and all-wise God. And what is that arrangement in respect to the future? Two main thoughts would we dwell upon at this time: _I. Hell, what is it?--its nature. II. How long does it last?--its duration._