But alongside this view another which is a flagrant contradiction of it has come down to us, namely, that immediately after death the soul goes straight to heaven or hell, as the case may be, without waiting for the archangel's trump and the grand assize. On the whole this is the dominant theory of the situation in Protestant circles, and is much less reasonable than the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, however much the latter may have been abused. But under this view what is the exact significance of the Judgment Day and the physical Resurrection? One would think they might be accounted superfluous. What is the good of tormenting a soul in hell for ages and then whirling it back to the body in order to rise again and receive a solemn public condemnation? Better leave it in the Inferno and save trouble, especially as the solemn trial is meaningless, seeing that a part of the sentence has already been undergone, and that there is no hope that any portion of it will ever be remitted. Truly the tender mercies with which theologians have credited the Almighty are cruel indeed! It is difficult to speak with patience of the solemn, non-committal way in which many present-day theological writers discuss everlasting punishment. Many of them have an "open mind" on the subject, whatever that may be, and warn the rest of us not to dogmatise on the great mystery. It does not seem to occur to them that the Christian fundamental of the love of God renders the dogma of everlasting punishment impossible, for it implies that God will do the most for the being that needs the most, and surely that must be the most unhappy sinner. Others speak of a "larger hope," a second opportunity for accepting divine grace, and so on. But these theories do not meet the case at all. While sin remains in the universe, God is defeated; everlasting punishment involves His everlasting failure. How often we bear preachers speaking about the obdurate human will, which to all eternity may go on resisting good. There are not a few who defend the abstract possibility of everlasting punishment by insisting that it is impossible to coerce the will, and therefore that to endless ages a soul may go on choosing evil and rejecting good. But this is an entirely new argument; it implies that a sinner _might_ choose the good on the other side of death, and that if he does not he continues eternally to pass sentence upon himself, God being helpless in the matter. This is not the way in which advocates of everlasting punishment used to talk. It is a little more hopeful than the conventional dogma, for it makes the sinner to some extent his own judge and executioner, and places stress on the undoubted truth that if a man keeps on doing wrong things he becomes hardened. I have heard this view defended in private by a bishop, who apparently never saw that in adopting it he had given up entirely the orthodox Protestant