happiness will reign undisturbed.

It may be helpful here to point out that God is in no way responsible for Hell, any more than the earthly judge is to blame for the wretchedness of prison life. So far as He is concerned it would never have existed at all. It is not even sin that is to blame for it, but only defiant unrepentant sin which cannot give happiness even to its owners, but only hardness of heart and bitterness of mind! The sinner can bring himself to such a state of mind that even in heaven he would be miserable, so that God can do nothing to help him even if He would, but can only prevent him spoiling the happiness of others. It should also be understood that Hell is not a place where Satan and his angels and demons can torture people to their hearts' content. Satan is not the King of Hell but is its victim. The torture of Hell will arise from its inmates' eternal inability to satisfy their evil desires. The absence of opportunity to repeat the evil acts of their life will be their torment, and the eternal despair of wicked desires which will never again be gratified. Perhaps we may see in a paralytic stroke the best illustration of death and Hell. The victim is left conscious, and also realising that no one can help him, so that never again will he be able to do what he has done in the past. The future stretches before him as a ghastly inactivity filled with torturing memories and well-founded despair.

There are those who speak as if the Lord God could send souls to Hell for eternity because of what Adam did, or because the minister failed to arrive in time, or because they were not in the number of the elect. The very simple truth is that God would be profoundly wicked if He sent anyone to eternal punishment except for one single crime, eternal sin. Eternal punishment, awful as it is, is the only answer to eternal refusal to repent. For the alternative, to give the