But the idea of hell is to many persons a real terror, not to be overmastered by reason. God has not made man in His own image; man has made God in his. As Grant Allen used to say: “The Englishman’s idea of God is an Englishman twelve feet high”; and the old Jews, who were a very savage and ruthless people, created Jehovah in their own image. To such a God eternal punishment for a point of belief was quite the natural thing, and nineteen centuries of belief in the teaching of a loving and forgiving Christ have not abolished that frightful idea. It is one of the disservices of the Mediæval Church to mankind that it popularized and enforced the idea of hell, and that idea has been diligently perpetuated by some narrow-minded sects to this very day. But to a modern man, who, with all his faults, is a kindly and forgiving creature, hell is unthinkable, and he cannot bring himself to believe that it was actually part of the teaching of Christ. If the New Testament says so, then, thinks the average modern man, it must be in an interpolation by some mediæval ecclesiastic whose zeal outran his mercy; and an average modern man is not seriously swayed by any idea of everlasting flames. He may even quaintly wonder, if he has studied the known facts of the universe, where either hell or heaven is to be found, considering that they are supposed to have lasted for ever and to be fated to last as long. In time to come the souls, saved and lost, must be of infinite number, if they are not so already; and an infinite number would fill all available space and spill over for an infinite distance, leaving no room for flames, or brimstone, or harps, or golden cities. Perhaps it may not be beyond Almighty Power to solve this difficulty, but it is a very real one to the average thoughtful man. When we begin to realize infinity, to realize that every one of the millions of known suns must each last for millions of years, after which the whole process must begin again, endure as long, and so on _ad infinitum_, the thing becomes simply inconceivable; the mind staggers, and takes refuge in agnosticism, which is not cured by the scoffing of clergymen whom one suspects of not viewing things from a modern standpoint. Jowett once answered a young man whom he evidently looked upon as a “puppy” by thundering at him: “Young man, you call yourself an agnostic; let me tell you that _agnostic_ is a Greek word the Latin of which is _ignoramus_!” Jowett evidently did not in the least understand that young man’s difficulties, nor the difficulties of any man whose training has been scientific--that is, directed towards the ascertaining what is demonstrably true. Scoffing and insolence like that only react upon the scoffer’s head, and rather breed contempt than comfort. Nor is the problem of God Himself any more easy of solution, unless we are prepared to see Him everywhere, in every minute cell and tiny bacterium. If we confess to such a belief we are immediately