ter their little interests, but
it is assuredly a thousandfold harder to think that this Infinite Spirit
has a yawning hell ready to engulph the vast majority of the world's
miserable sinners. If the Atheist has no heaven, he has also no hell,
which is a most merciful relief. Far better were universal annihilation
than that even the meanest life should writhe for ever in hell, gnawed
by the worm which never dieth, and burnt in the fire which is never
quenched.

Even Nature, thinks Professor Flint, cannot be contemplated by the
Atheist as the Theist contemplates it; for while the latter views it
as God's vesture wherewith he hides from us his intolerable glory, the
latter views it as the mere embodiment of force, senseless, aimless,
pitiless, an enormous mechanism grinding on of itself from age to
age, but towards no God and for no good. Here we must observe that the
lecturer trespasses beyond the truth. The Atheist does not affirm that
Nature drives on to no God and no good; he simply says he knows not
whither she is driving. And how many Theists are there who think of God
in the presence of Nature, who see God's smile in the sunshine, or hear
his wrath in the storm? Very few, we opine, in this practical sceptical
age. To the Atheist as to the Theist, indeed to all blessed with vision,
Nature is an ever new wonder of majesty and beauty! Sun, moon, and
stars, earth, air, and sky, endure while the generations of men pass
and perish; but every new generation is warmed, lighted, nurtured and
gladdened by them with most sovereign and perfect impartiality. The
loveliness and infinite majesty of Nature speak to all men, of all
ages, climes and creeds. Not in her inanimate beauty do we find fatal
objections to the doctrine of a wise and bountiful power which overrules
her, but rather in the multiplied horrors, woes, and pangs of
sentient life. When all actual and recorded misery is effaced, when no
intolerable grief corrodes and no immedicable despair poisons life, when
the tears of anguish are assuaged, when crime and vice are unknown and
unremembered, and evil lusts are consumed in the fire of holiness; then,
and then only, could we admit that a wise and righteous omnipotence
rules the universal destinies. Until then we cannot recognise the
fatherhood of God, but must find shelter and comfort in the more
efficacious doctrine of the brotherhood of Man.

Professor Flint concluded his lecture, according to the newspaper
report