cal Classics_, p. 85.

V.

THE ETHICAL DOCTRINE OF COMPENSATION.

I suppose there is no teaching more frequently insisted upon in the Old
and in the New Testament as the truth of a judgment, now, or in the
future, upon the misdeeds or sins of men. Let criticism prune and cut
as it will, while it exhibits the deplorably low standard of morality
once prevalent among the Hebrew peoples, and therefore prevalent among
their Gods, their Elohim, Adonai and Jahveh, one thing, at least, is
undeniable--that that which is recognised as immoral is reprobated and
forthwith visited with condign punishment. Doubtless, acts which to us
are wholly reprehensible are discussed without attaching any stigma to
them, and are even permitted, and sometimes suggested, by Jahveh
himself, as in the story of Judith and Holofernes. Such ethical
insensibility is wholly natural, viewing the state of development at
which the Hebrew people had arrived, and should cause no wonderment in
those who are familiar with the Deity of Christian Mediaevalism, and
the methods and practices he was supposed to favour. But what should
be carefully noted is, that nothing is adjudged immoral but is
forthwith sternly reprobated and condemned to a fitting retribution.
"The way of transgressors is hard" was a conviction with the race. In
the same way, the ethical note rings out in the New Testament, that
right and wrong are eternally dissevered, sheep ever separated from
goats; that virtue must be rewarded and vice be condemned and punished.

Now, this teaching of the judgment to come, the bare announcement of
which by Paul filled Felix, the Roman governor, with such dire
consternation, is the subject of which we propose to set forth the
philosophical and ethical explanation. In the Bible we have the
mythical setting much as we have the mythical version of the agony of
spirit undergone by Christ before he definitely committed himself to
his prophetical work. It is for us to-day to disentangle the
substantive truth from the maze of legend with which an imperfectly
developed age has surrounded it and discover the true _raison d'etre_
of that doctrine which "the Bible Christian" confesses under the aspect
of the "Last Judgment".

Now, I take it that no educated man believes in the drama, or rather,
the panorama, of the "last judgment"; the vision of Jesus sitting in
the clouds, with every human being that ever was or shall be gathered
before his throne to