hes into the antiquity of man, into the origin and permanence of
species, which--let the result be what it will--must in the meanwhile
shake for us theories and dogmas which have been undisputed for 1500
years.

And with the rest of our cosmogony, that conception of a physical
Tartarus below the earth has been shaken likewise, till good men have
been fain to find a fresh place for it in the sun, or in a comet; or to
patronize the probable, but as yet unproved theory of a central fire
within the earth; not on any scientific grounds, but simply if by any
means they can assign a region in space, wherein material torment can be
inflicted on the spirits of the lost.

And meanwhile the heavens, the spiritual world, is being shaken no less.
More and more frequently, more and more loudly, men are asking--not
sceptics merely, but pious men, men who wish to be, and who believe
themselves to be, orthodox Christians--more and more loudly are such men
asking questions which demand an answer, with a learning and an
eloquence, as well as with a devoutness and a reverence for Scripture,
which--whether rightly or wrongly employed--is certain to command
attention.

Rightly or wrongly, these men are asking, whether the actual and literal
words of Scripture really involve the mediaeval theory of an endless
Tartarus.

They are saying, "It is not we who deny, but you who assert, endless
torments, who are playing fast and loose with the letter of Scripture.
You are reading into it conceptions borrowed from Virgil, Dante, Milton,
when you translate into the formula 'endless torment' such phrases as
'the outer darkness,' 'the fire of Gehenna,' 'the worm that dieth not;'
which, according to all just laws of interpretation, refer not to the
next life, but to this life, and specially to the approaching catastrophe
of the Jewish nation; or when you say that eternal death really means
eternal life--only life in torture."

Rightly or wrongly, they are saying this; and then they add, "We do not
yield to you in love and esteem for Scripture. We demand not a looser,
but a stricter; not a more metaphoric, but a more literal; not a more
contemptuous, but a more reverent interpretation thereof."

So these men speak, rightly or wrongly. And for good or for evil, they
will be heard.

And with these questions others have arisen, not new at all--say these
men--but to be found, amid many contradictions, in the writings of all
the best divines, when t