ejecters of
Christ; Christ teaches plainly that they who reject the Gospel will
perish in the endless darkness of night. But eternal punishment does not
necessarily mean eternal suffering; hence the hypothesis of the soul
gradually shrivelling for the sin of its unbelief.

The amiable Presbyterian sniffed at this as a sentimental quibble.
Punishment ceases to be punishment when it is not felt--one cannot
punish a tree or an unconscious soul. But this was the spirit of the
age. With the fires out in hell, no wonder we have an age of sugar-candy
morality and cheap sentimentalism.

But here the Unitarian wickedly interrupted, to remind his Presbyterian
brother that his own church had quenched those very certain fires that
once burned under the pit in which lay the souls of infants unbaptised.

The amiable Presbyterian, not relishing this, still amiably threw the
gauntlet down to Father Riley, demanding the Catholic view of the future
of unbaptised children.

The speech of the latter was a mellow joy--a south breeze of liquid
consonants and lilting vowels finely articulated. Perhaps it was not a
little owing to the good man's love for what he called "oiling the rusty
hinges of the King's English with a wee drop of the brogue"; but, if so,
the oil was so deftly spread that no one word betrayed its presence.
Rather was his whole speech pervaded by this soft delight, especially
when his cherubic face, his pink cheeks glistening in certain lights
with a faint silvery stubble of beard, mellowed with his gentle smile.
It was so now, even when he spoke of God's penalties for the souls of
reprobate infants.

"All theologians of the Mother Church are agreed," replied the gracious
father, "first, that infants dying unbaptised are excluded from the
Kingdom of Heaven. Second, that they will not enjoy the beatific vision
outside of heaven. Third, that they will arise with adults and be
assembled for judgment on the last day. And, fourth, that after the last
day there will be but two states, namely: a state of supernatural and
supreme felicity and a state of what, in a wide sense, we may call
damnation."

Purlingly the good man went on to explain that damnation is a state
admitting of many degrees; and that the unbaptised infant would not
suffer in that state the same punishment as the adult reprobate. While
the latter would suffer positive pains of mind and body for his sins,
the unfortunate infant would doubtless suffer no pain