Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/94

 body of the infernal in the hells," to be finally destroyed through "the unrestrained ultimation given to the ruling infernal loves"?—so that the man (when these forms are destroyed), "freed from his prison-house in the hells," will be "restored to his original infant state of conscious existence,"?—will "at once ascend to the plane of the New Heaven—his eternal Home—and there, from this new point of departure, advance in and to Eternal Life"?

These interrogatories, it will be seen, are only different ways of presenting one and the same question, which is commonly stated in this form: "Are the hells to be unending in their duration?"—or this: "Will those who go to hell after death, always remain there? Will they always continue in an infernal state?"

This inquiry is not only natural, but it is one which cannot be kept down. It rises spontaneously to the thought, however its utterance by the lips or pen may be suppressed.

And where shall we look for an answer to this question? To the intuitions of the natural reason? or to the unequivocal teachings of Revelation? Is the verdict of natural reason worthy of implicit reliance in questions of this nature?—perverted, distorted, beclouded as all will admit this reason to be. Were reason alone sufficient to assure us of our continued and conscious existence after the body dies? Reason may have nothing to urge against the doctrine of the soul's immortality—nay, it