in penal settlements
and prisons are to the inhabitants of a well-ordered and Christian
kingdom.

But not only are our thoughts of future punishment naturally darkened
into deepest gloom by the assumed multitudes of those who will suffer,
but also by the nature of those sufferings which we also assume are
to be assigned to them. We literally interpret all those images of
unquenchable fire and the undying worm, borrowed from the constant
conflagrations and corruptions of the offal and carcases of dead
animals in the valley of Hinnom, (or Gaienna,) near Jerusalem, and
also the obviously metaphorical language used in the parable of the
rich man and Lazarus, as if necessarily teaching that worms or fire
would be employed to torture for all eternity the immortal bodies
of the lost. But what if there is to be no such bodily pain? though
possibly there may be some kind of physical suffering immediately
produced by sin there as well as here. What if the wicked shall be
punished only by permitting them to "eat the fruit of their own way,
and to be filled with their own devices?" What if, instead of the
wrath of God being poured upon them to the utmost, it will be
inflicted in the least _possible_ measure, and only in the way of
natural consequence? What if the sin which makes the hell hereafter,
is, in spite of all its suffering, loved, clung to, even as the sin is
which makes the hell now? Nay, what if every gift of God, and every
capacity for perverting His gifts, are retained; and if the sinner
shall suffer only from that which he himself _chooses_ for ever, and
for ever determines to possess? I do not say that it must be so;
but if it is so, then might a hell of unbridled self-indulgence be
preferred then, as it is by many now, to a heaven whose blessedness
consisted in perfect holiness, and the possession of the love of God
in Christ, for ever and ever. Let, then, the fairest star be selected,
like a beauteous island in the vast and shoreless sea of the azure
heavens, as the future home of the criminals from the earth; and let
them possess in this material paradise whatever they most love, and
all that it is _possible_ for God to bestow; let them be endowed with
undying bodies, and with minds which shall for ever retain their
intellectual powers; let them no more be "plagued with religion;" let
no Saviour ever intrude His claims upon them, no Holy Spirit disturb
them, no God reveal Himself supernaturally to them; let no Sa