will be secured by the begetting and education of its future Rulers.

It is impossible to imagine the agonies of mind through which men have passed when they have first caught sight of this deadly lie, that only an insignificant fraction of the world's population has any possibility of escaping eternal torment in Hell: or to count the number of those who, believing this to be Christianity, have revolted against its barbarity, and either forsaken the Lord, or else even fought against His people. The evangelist has no greater handicap to his powerful preaching of the Cross, than the practice of prefacing his offer of salvation in Christ with a totally unreasonable and unloving picture of His Father. So far from blunting the edge of his sword the true doctrine of Hell will enter his hearers' hearts with inescapable conviction of the certainty of their doom.

To sum up then. The aim of Hell is not to make things as painful as possible for the sinner, but simply to secure the Kingdom of Heaven for ever from all unhappiness and danger. Hell is in fact the Divine Prison in which the eternal sentence of preventive detention is carried out. As in all God's actions its raison d'être is Love, love of the righteous, and a determination that never again shall their bliss be jeopardised. "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?"12 saith the Lord God. The punishment of the wicked will be no more than they themselves have forced upon the Love of God, and His wrath will be unmixed with mercy,13 only because mercy will have been offered, and causelessly and finally refused. So will the smoke of their torment ascend ceaselessly up as a token that the wages of sin is indeed death and that God is not mocked. The happiness of the Millennium will have been ruined when Satan is let out of prison,14 but there will be no repetition of that tragedy: the gates of Hell will close for ever upon its prisoners, and peace will reign for the Ages of the Ages.