That is the most infamous passage in all literature. It is the language, not of an incarnate God, but of an incarnate devil. The being who gave utterance to those words deserves not the worship, but the execration of mankind. The priests who preach this doctrine of eternal pain are fiends. There is misery enough in this world without adding to it the mental anguish of this monstrous lie. Less than a hundred years ago, when Christ was yet believed to be divine, in nearly every pulpit, to frighten timid and confiding mothers, dimpled babes were consigned to the red flames of this eternal hell. Then came the preachers of humanity--the Ballous, the Channings, the Parkers and the Beechers--preachers with hearts and brains, who sought to humanize this heavenly demon, to make of him a decent man, and civilize his fiendish priests. To these men is due the debt of everlasting gratitude. With the return of every spring the emancipated of the race should build above their sacred dust a pyramid of flowers. Not by the sects known as Universalists and Unitarians, small in numbers, though in the character of their adherents the greatest of the Christian sects, must we estimate the importance of the work of Ballou and Channing and other Liberal ministers. The influence of their teachings has permeated every Christian sect, and quickened every humane conscience. In the minds of all intelligent Christians, largely as the result of their labors, this heartless demon and this cruel dogma are dead. In their creeds they still survive. They are ashamed of the dogma; they abhor it. They should abhor its author, and banish both. "What! I should call on that Infinite Love that has served us so well? Infinite cruelty rather, that made everlasting hell, Made us, foreknew us, foredoom'd us, and does what he will with his own; Better our dead brute mother who never has heard us groan." --Tennyson. 531 Is it possible to fall from grace? Peter: "If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning" (2 Peter ii, 20). "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John x, 27, 28). "There is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized."--Confession of Faith, Art. IX. 532 Is baptism essential to salvation? "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark xvi, 16). "Except a man be born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God" (John iii, 5). "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them" (Matthew xxviii, 19). Was the penitent thief baptized?