Nor may we dare to hide from ourselves and others, in these days, the dread considerations involved in the doctrine which the Church has drawn from explicit statements in the word of God. Eternal punishment; eternal suffering in the universe; moans rising up ever in the ear of heaven; the cries of souls in anguish piercing the serenity of the heavenly rest. Eternal evil too. Evil never more to die out of the worlds on which the dew of the primal benediction lay, and which flashed back the smile of Him who looked upon them and saw that “_they were very good_.” The curse rioting, sin reigning unto death, in some region of the universe sustained and ruled by the Divine hand; never to be expelled from the creation, never to be drawn under the merciful reign of God. We are too prone to hide the awful reality which is behind this language, by vague notions of the judgment as the final banishing of evil from the sight of God and of the blessed. Nothing that is can be banished from the sight of God; nothing that exists—we will not say lives, life is a sacred word—can exist from moment to moment without the interposition of the Divine hand. Ever present before the great Father must be the anguish and the moans of the souls in torment; ever to His eye there must be this dark counterfoil to the joy and glory of the redeemed. And yet the question forces itself upon us: What else can the plain statements of the Scriptures mean; nay, what else can in the essential nature of things befall a free spirit that chooses to exercise its freedom in sin? We may well feel with a wise one of old, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for us: it is as high as heaven, what can we do? it is as deep as hell, what can we know?” Sore difficulties beset us in working out a clear and harmonious theory of the judgment and its issues. But blessed be God that we can rest in the belief that all will be, in ways that we see not, so wisely and righteously ordered by the Judge of all the earth, as to satisfy the yearning heart, not of the great Father only, but of the Redeemer of humanity, and to fill the universe with praise. Here as elsewhere, when we are bewildered and perplexed by thoughts too high for us and which reach too far, we find a sure refuge and rest in faith. We believe God in Christ, and we can leave our future and the future of humanity in His hand. Meanwhile, our work, our duty is clear: “_Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God._” “_This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent._” “_Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ._” “_Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved._”