“I confess when I look upon a world of sinners and of sufferers; upon death-beds and grave-yards, upon the world of woe filled with hosts to suffer forever; when I see my friends, my parents, my family, my people, my fellow-citizens; when I look upon a whole race all involved in this sin and danger, and when I see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and when I feel that God only can save them, and yet he does not do it--I am struck dumb. It is all dark, dark, dark to my soul, and I cannot disguise it.”--_Sermons_, pp. 124, 125. Such is the effect of the doctrine of eternal misery with some, according to the confession of its own advocates. No one can say that such effects are either good or desirable. And why does it not have this effect upon more? We answer, it is because the lips only mechanically assent to what the heart and reason either will not try to realize, or else do not seriously believe. Says Bishop Newton:-- “Imagine a creature, nay, imagine numberless creatures produced out of nothing ... delivered over to torments of endless ages, without the least hope or possibility of relaxation or redemption. Imagine it you may, but you can never seriously believe it, nor reconcile it to God and goodness.”--_Dissertation_, No. 60. But the majority are affected by it far differently. Every better emotion of their nature revolts at the idea, and they will not accept it. They cannot believe that God is thus cruel, tyrannical, revengeful, implacable; the personification, in short, of every trait of character which, when seen in men here, we consider unmistakable marks of debasement and degradation; and believing the Bible and Christianity to be identified with such teaching as this, with equal promptness they too are rejected and cast away. But here we need not enlarge. Probably no one will read these lines under whose observation some case has not come of persons driven into skepticism, yes, driven and held there, by the popular doctrine of eternal misery--a doctrine which has been well described by a Christian writer, as “a theology that is confused, entangled, imperfect, and gloomy; a theology which, while it abundantly breeds infidelity among the educated classes, fails to spread through the body of the population, and but dimly, or only as a flickering candle enlightens the world.”--_I. Taylor._