l, drawn from the laws of right; the second is
theological, drawn from the attributes of God; the third is
experimental, drawn from the principles of human nature. We shall
subdivide these and consider them successively.

In the first place, we maintain that the popular doctrine of
eternal punishment is unjust, because it overlooks the differences
in the sins of men, launching on all whom it embraces one infinite
penalty of undiscriminating damnation. The consistent advocates of
the doctrine, the boldest creeds, unflinchingly avow this, and
defend it by the plea that every sin, however trivial, is equally
an offence against the law of the infinite God with the most
terrible crime, and equally merits an infinite punishment. Thus,
by a metaphysical quibble, the very basis of morals is overturned,
and the child guilty of an equivocation through fear is put on a
level with the pirate guilty of robbery and murder through cold
blooded avarice and hate. In a hell where all are plunged in
physical fire for eternity there are no degrees of retribution,
though the degrees of evil and demerit are as numerous and various
as the individuals. The Scriptures say, "Every man shall receive
according to the deeds done in the body:" some "shall be beaten
with many stripes," others "with few stripes."

The first principle of justice exact discrimination of judgment
according to deeds and character is monstrously violated and all
differences blotted out by the common dogma of hell. A better
thought is shown in the old Persian legend which tells that God
once permitted Zoroaster to accompany him on a visit to hell. The
prophet saw many in grievous torments. Among the rest, he saw one
who was deprived of his right foot. Asking the meaning of this,
God replied, "Yonder sufferer was a king who in his whole life did
but one kind action. Passing once near a dromedary which, tied up
in a state of starvation, was vainly striving to reach some
provender placed just beyond its utmost effort, the king with his
right foot compassionately kicked the fodder within the poor
beast's reach. That foot I placed in heaven: the rest of him is
here." 18

Again: there is the grossest injustice in the first assumption or
fundamental ground on which the theory we are opposing rests. That
theory does not teach that men are actually damned eternally on
account of their own personal sins, but on account of original
sin: the eternal tortures of hell are the transm