Belief in hell takes all beauty from virtue; who cares for obedience only rendered through fear? No true love of good is wrought in man by the fear of hell, and outward respectability is of little worth when the heart and the desires are unpurified. We may add that the fear of hell is a very slight practical restraint; no man thinks himself really bad enough for hell, and it is so far off that every one intends to repent at the last and so escape it. Far more restraining is the proclamation of the stern truth that, in the popular sense of the word, there is no such thing as the "forgiveness of sins;" that as a man sows, so shall he reap, and that broken laws avenge themselves without exception.
Belief in hell stifles all inquiry into truth by setting a premium on one form of belief, and by forbidding another under frightful penalties.. "If it be true, as it is true, that all who do not believe this shall perish everlastingly, then, I ask, _is it not worth while to believe?_" So says a clergyman of the Church of England. Thus he presses his people to accept the dogma of the Deity of Jesus, not because it is-true, but because it is dangerous to deny it. And this-difficulty meets us every day. If we urge inquiry, we are told "it is dangerous;" if we suggest a difficulty, we are told "it is safer to believe;" and so this doctrine of hell chains down men's faculties and palsies their intellects, and they dare not seek for truth at all, lest he who is Truth should cast them into hell for it.
It may perhaps be said by many that I have attacked this dogma with undue vehemence, and with excessive warmth. I attack it thus, because I know the harm that it is doing, because it saddens the righteous heart and clouds the face of God. Only those who have realised hell, and realising it, have believed in it, know the awful shadow with which it darkens the world. There are many who laugh at it, but they have not felt its power, and they forget that a dogma which is only ludicrous to them is weighing heavily on many a tender heart and sensitive brain. Hell drives many mad: to others-it is a life-long horror. It pales the sunlight with its lurid flames; it blackens the earth with the smoke of its torment; it makes the Devil an actual presence; it transforms God into an enemy, eternity into an awful doom. It takes the spring out of all pleasures; it poisons all enjoyments; it spreads gloom over life, and enshrouds the tomb in horror unspeakable. Only those who have felt the anguish of this nightmare know what it is to wake up into the sunlight, and find it is only a disordered dream of the darkness; they only know the glorious liberty of heart and soul, with which they lift up smiling faces to meet the smile of God, when they can say from the depths of their glad hearts, "I believe that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all; I believe that all mankind is safe, cradled in the everlasting arms."