That is to say in plain English: "I cannot give up the certainty of hell for others, because if I do I shall have no certainty of heaven for myself; and I would rather know that millions of my brethren should be tormented for ever, than remain doubtful about my own everlasting enjoyment." Surely a loving heart would say, instead, "O God, let us all die and remain unconscious for ever, rather than that one soul should suffer everlastingly." The terrible selfishness of the Christian belief degrades the noblest soul; the horror of hell makes men lose their self-control, and think only of their personal safety, just as we see men run wild sometimes at a shipwreck, when the gain of a minute means life. The belief in hell fosters religious pride and hatred, for all religious people think that they themselves at least are sure of heaven. If then they are going to rejoice through all eternity over the sufferings of the lost, why should they treat them with kindness or consideration here? Thus hell, becomes the mother of persecution; for the heretic, the enemy of the Lord, there is no mercy and no forgiveness. Then the saints persuade themselves that true charity obliges them to persecute, for suffering may either save the heretic himself by forcing him to believe, or may at least scare others from sharing his heresy, and so preserve them from eternal fire. And they are right, if hell is true. Any means are justifiable which may save man from that horrible doom; surely we should not hesitate to knock a man down, if by so doing we preserved him from throwing himself over a precipice. Belief in hell takes all beauty from virtue; who cares for obedience only rendered through fear? No true love of good is wrought in man by the fear of hell, and outward respectability is of little worth when the heart and the desires are unpurified. We may add that the fear of hell is a very slight practical restraint; no man thinks himself really bad enough for hell, and it is so far off that every one intends to repent at the last and so escape it. Far more restraining is the proclamation of the stern truth that, in the popular sense of the word, there is no such thing as the "forgiveness of sins;" that as a man sows, so shall he reap, and that broken laws avenge themselves without exception.