salvation to the unsaved after the resurrection. Excuse me if I ask what you do now hold in respect to the final destiny of all men. You seem to provide either for universalism or a future probation for those who die impenitent. Am I mistaken ?"

With regard to "the final destiny of all men," we have sought to be content with the statement of general principles, as we find them in the Bible. Nothing is easier, even where one's view of these general principles is entirely correct, than to embarrass him by questions about their detailed application. In a subject so obscure, this must be so. It is to be presumed that our correspondent accepts the doctrine of our Confessionthat the final destiny of all who die unsaved is to be punished with unspeakable torments of body and soul with the devil and his angels in hell-fire forever. If we were to ask him whether the unsaved include all who never heard the gospel; whether the torments they suffer are physical; whether the term "hellfire" is to be taken as literal or figurative; whether this awful penalty is inflicted for the sins of this life, as the Standards ' imply, or whether eternal suffering is due to eternal sin, he would doubtless be embarrassed to find satisfactory replies. If we do not therefore satisfy him with our reply, we hope he will charitably remember that the Bible has given us great principles and that we are all liable to err when we venture into the region of inference. We say then that the Bible teaches: I. That sin works the destruction of the sinner both in this life and after death. 2. This destruction is not absolute and final, inasmuch as the grace of God has provided for all men a recovery from death. 3. This universal resurrection is not universal salvation. Only those who are in Christ rise in the glory of the eternal life: all others to a life still fettered and under trial, and liable to a second death. 4. Some suffer this second death, which is not the equivalent of endless torment nor 'degradation," but a veritable death out of which there is no promised resurrection.

"

We do not believe, therefore, in the final salvation of all men. We do believe, however, that the threatened penalty for

the sins of this life is not interminable. It is bounded by the resurrection. This blessing, however, reaches men only "in their own order," and in such character of life as they are capable of. If they have been deeply degraded by sin, they must be the more heavily weighted in the life to come. To some the opportunity of another life will end in failure. This new trial in life, we presume, may be called "a future probation." But it is not a continuance or a renewal of such probation as men are under in this life. With sinful men this trial, such as it is, is over at death. The account is closed. Their estate in life is bankrupt. They lose their souls. Resurrection re-invests the outcast spirit of man with another body and soul. How much of the former man is built into the revived being, who can tell? But this restored man must have a probation, because it enters into the very essence of manhood that it is a form of creaturehood on trial for the highest dignities of being. We believe that every human being must reach such a trial. Only one man, Adam, has fairly had such a probation in this world. All others are born under condemnation. Believers in Christ are now saved from it. But the mass go down to death under that condemnation and wait until judgment is satisfied in their case before the gift of a restored life will bring them opportunity. This is "restitutionism," but only after judgment. It is universal opportunity, which is not in this world granted, but not universal success. It is the redemption of all from death, but not to eternal life. It is the universal possibility of this great salvation, but not universal salvation. For beyond the second life there lies the possibility of the second death.

WE BEG the indulgence of other correspondents whose letters ought to have been noticed before this. We have been so situated the past two months as to be unable to give that attention to our correspondence it deserved.

Our thanks are due to Mr. Charles T. Russell, editor of Zion's Watchtower, for a copy of his valuable book, Millenial Dawn. We purpose to give it critical notice in a future

number.

VOL. II.]

DECEMBER, 1886.

[No. 12.

CLOSE OF VOLUME II.

This number closes a second volume of this magazine, and furnishes a fit occasion for some plain words with our readers about it. They will wish to know whether it has been a success, whether it is to be continued, and, if so, what are its aims for the future.

We began this work with the firm conviction that we had been put in trust with a larger message of the gospel than the church had generally received We were led to see that it was glad tidings to all people in that it conveyed assurance that the life which had been forfeited for all had been redeemed for all, and that, although the death-sentence must be carried out, and the life surrendered and full punishment for sin meted out, beyond this work of judgment God has provided to raise even the unjust to another opportunity of life. This gospel we have endeavored to speak not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. We have sought on the one hand to present it in its scriptural fullness, and on the other, to guard all that scripture teaches concerning future punishment, and even eternal punishment, from dangerous neglect by those who are ready to turn the grace of God into lasciviousness and to continue in sin that grace may abound.

It was manifest from the outset that a doctrine which impinged at many points against accepted beliefs, and for the reception of which no room had

been left in the institutional forms in which men have compacted the Christian faith, must make its way slowly. And yet, as the full gospel, it must first be received before either the true doctrine of the church can be seen, or its unity of faith and organism for which Jesus prayed be attained. In striving to make known this full gospel, which, besides its special salvation for them that believe, brings to all men the hope of redemption from the death brought upon all, we have been working towards an end most dear to us, the ultimate unity and perfection of the church. We must have more agreement about the goal towards which we are all tending before we can all be one.

This magazine has had therefore to create for itself a new constituency. It found none ready to hand. There was no party in the church holding its views upon which it could rely for support. It started indeed with a number of subscribers who believed, as do we, that the coming of the Lord is the true hope of the church. But it has alienated some of these from its support because it has failed to feed what we believe to be an unhealthy appetite for the sensational aspects of this great theme, and has spoken to them freely about the common mistake of its advocates in so looking for the coming Christ as to overlook the present Christ. Again, at the outset of our work we made it plain that we are no believers in the accepted view of the inherent immortality of man. We could have found a constituency ready to welcome us if we would cast our lot with that growing company of Christians who are partisans of that

view. But most of them seem equally blind, with their more orthodox brethren, to any gracious purpose of God in providing a universal ransom of mankind from death. For whether these countless masses are raised to be cast again into an eternal hell, or to be punished by annihilating judgments, either end is unworthy of the grace which has provided a ransom for all, and turns what was meant to be a great blessing into an unspeakable disaster. We could not turn aside therefore to seek partisan support from those with whom we agreed in the foundation truth that there is no eternal life for man except as he is grafted by faith into the stock of that new and immortal manhood of which Christ is the first fruits. Since we

began to prepare this article there comes to us a

notice from a subscriber of this class to discontinue because our view that the soul-which we believe to be destructible-survives the body in death "involves the errors and absurdities of immortal-soulism."

And so in the contest we have made in our own denomination for the revision of its worn out and discarded formulas which teach that wicked men are raised to be judged and cast again into hell "to be punished with unspeakable torments of body and soul with the devil and his angels in hellfire forever,"while many have felt the force of our plea for perfect honesty and candor in the church's dealing with these tremendous themes, and for that posture of mind in reference to them which is open to any new light which God may throw upon them in these last days, yet few are willing to avow this, or identify them