To some extent no doubt Christ’s description of the Universal Gehenna must be regarded as figurative, but yet we do not think that the sayings of Christ with regard to the unseen world ought to be looked upon as nothing more than pure figures of speech. We feel assured that the principle of Continuity cries out against such an interpretation—may they not rather be descriptions of what takes place in the unseen universe brought home to our minds by means of perfectly true comparisons with the processes and things of this present universe which they most resemble? And just as, in the visible universe, there is apparently an enormous and inexplicable _waste_ of germs, seeds, and eggs of all kinds, which die simply because they are useless—analogy would lead us to conclude that something similar, and to at least as enormous an extent, happens in the Unseen with the germs of spiritual frames. The caterpillar which has not chosen a secure place of refuge in which to assume the chrysalis form does not live to become a perfect insect. The seeds that fell by the wayside, though scattered by an intelligent sower, were devoured by the birds of the air. ‘Let every one of them pass away, like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.’ ‘For many are called, but few chosen.’[71] 262. Thus the Christian Gehenna bears to the Unseen Universe precisely the same relation as the Gehenna of the Jews did to the city of Jerusalem; and just as the fire was always kept up and the worm ever active in the one, so are we forced to contemplate an enduring process in the other. For we cannot easily agree with those who would limit the existence of evil to the present world. We know now that the matter of the whole of the visible universe is of a piece with that which we recognise here, and the beings of other worlds must apparently be subject to accidental occurrences from their relation with the outer universe in the same way as we are. But if there be accident, must there not be pain and death? Now these are naturally associated in our minds with the presence of moral evil. We are thus drawn, if not forced, to surmise that the dark thread known as evil is one which is very deeply woven into that garment of God which is called the Universe. In fine, just as the arguments of this chapter lead us to regard the whole Universe[72] as eternal, so in like manner are we led to surmise that evil is eternal, and therefore we cannot easily imagine the Universe without its Gehenna, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. The _process_ at all events would seem to us to be most probably an enduring one. [Many passages of the New Testament, however, seem to point to a continuity of moral development in the unseen universe, a development whose climax is to be reached when the last enemy, death, is destroyed in Gehenna.]