Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/44

 false teaching, are suspicions, doubts, denials, and finally the total eclipse of all faith.

See how good men—ministers of the gospel even—who have not accepted the rational and heart-cheering truths of the New Dispensation, are troubled even in this our day by what they suppose the Bible to teach in regard to the future state of the wicked. Says the late Rev. Dr. Barnes, one of the most distinguished of the Presbyterian ministers of our country:—

"That any should suffer for ever, lingering on in hopeless despair, and rolling amidst infinite torments without the possibility of alleviation and without end; that since God can save men and will save a part, He has not proposed to save all—these are real, not imaginary, difficulties. . . . My whole soul pants for light and relief on these questions. But I get neither; and in the distress and anguish of my own spirit, I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray to disclose to me why sin came into the world; why the earth is strewn with the dying and the dead; and why man must suffer to all eternity. I have never seen a particle of light thrown on these subjects, that has given a moment's ease to my tortured mind. . . . I confess, when I look on a world of sinners and sufferers—upon death-beds and graveyards—upon the world of woe filled with hosts to suffer for ever; when I see my friends, 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