Hell which ought to be prominent in all our pulpits. When men
cannot see any possible reconciliation between the doctrine of God's
love and their doctrine of Hell they are very apt to find an easy way
out. "We cannot reconcile them," said a young layman to me one day,
"therefore we drop out one of them--Hell." Do not be shocked at it.
Many besides my young layman are unconsciously doing it. Nowadays more
than ever we, clergy, are teaching much about the love of God. But
nowadays more than ever we are holding our tongues about Hell. We know
the horrible idea which Hell commonly conveys. Therefore we keep it in
the background trusting that our hearers will leave it there during the
sermon on God's love. But they do not, and so we are very unconvincing
about both doctrines.

Again, this common theory of Hell is so unreasonable that it has lost
its power as a deterrent. No teaching from which Conscience revolts
can long hold its power over men. The rough common sense, the rough
moral sense of careless men makes them reject it and treat it as a
subject of jest. When men can stupidly laugh together over jests about
hell-fire, when the devil is presented as a clown in the pantomime it
indicates something very wrong in the teaching. No doctrine has any
real hold on the crowd when they can lightly jest about it. And
because of their unbelief in this false notion of Hell they are ceasing
to believe in any Hell at all--ceasing to believe in that awful real
Hell which is taught in the Bible and of which God is giving some men
foretastes even in this life.

And this false notion of Hell tends to shake men's belief in the
reality of Heaven. For if the redeemed could enjoy their bliss in
Heaven, knowing that myriads are existing for ever and ever in endless
suffering and still worse in endless sin, one feels that they have
grown so selfish and opposite to Christ that they have no business in
any heaven.

We dare not leave out the love of God and we dare not leave out the
doctrine of Hell. Both are certainly true. Therefore they must be
capable of reconciliation. The reconciliation must not come in
ignoring Hell or believing in a kindly, good-natured God who does not
judge severely about moral character and who only cares that His child
should stop crying and be happy. We are having too much of this
sentimentalism nowadays. It is a miserable misconception of that awful
holiness which is "of purer eyes than to beho