makes it worthy of the name life, as applied to the soul in its eternal relations.

But if these things be so we must interpret death, the nega tive of life, in a similar manner. lf life be that which constitutes the soul's existence a blessing, death must be that which turns the soul's existence into a curse. If to "live" be to have a blissful knowledge and experience of God through Christ, then to "die" must be to lose God as a portion, and to endure the misery of that poverty forever.

And this interpretation is in accordance with a very common law of language, by which the secondary and derivative meaning of a word frequently becomes the more prominent and usual. Thus the word provide meant, originally and literally, to foresee, but now expresses the simple result of foreseeing; that to which men are led by the dangers or wants which they foresee. Tyrant meant at first a ruler with absolute authority, but now signifies an oppressive and unjust ruler, such as a man clothed with absolute authority is apt to become. To prevent signified in the Latin and old English to go before, but now means to hinder effectually, which is the result of getting before or anticipating an evil. So also the word life, even if it meant originally nothing but existence, would soon lose so narrow a signification, and pass to some idea arising from an experience of which existence is simply the physical basis or condition, (such as happiness or holiness,) an experience which gives emphasis and value to existence; and then the word death would naturally express the opposite experience.

Thus the poet says, in words that have been much admired for their force of expression:

"The man may last, but never lives,

Who much receives but nothing gives;

Whom none can love, whom none can thank,

Creation's blot, creation's blank !"

We speak also of a man's daily life, meaning not his bare existence, but his actions, his conduct, his character. We declare a person to be the very life of a social circle, that is, the source of its pleasure and happiness. We pronounce an orator or a writer to be full of life, that is, spirited and vigorous. We say of a musician that music is his life, or chief enjoyment; and Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, "For now we live, if ye stand

fast in the Lord," meaning that his soul would be full of joy, if they remained steadfast. So we say of a dull speaker or writer, that he is lifeless or dead; of an unsalable book, that it fell dead from the press; of an unproductive investment, that it is so much dead capital; and of a stock of goods, that it is dead on the hand; in neither of which cases is annihilation meant, but only a lack of use, or value. Now it would be passing strange if a religious teacher should not adopt a usage so common and so admirably adapted to his purpose, and speak of life in the highest and truest of all senses, meaning the condition of a soul that is pure, blissful, godlike, assured of an eternity of perfection, and thus answering the very end for which it was created; and of death as a condition the reverse of this, separate from God, sinful, ruinous. And the citations which have been made prove that such was Christ's method of speech.

3. The other words and phrases in Christ's discourses, which are relied upon to prove annihilation, are capable of, and indeed require a similar explanation. A proper understanding of the word death will of course explain all synonymous expressions, though each of them may be interpreted in the light of its own evidence. Take, for instance, the warning to "fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." It is only necessary to inquire how the Greek word, with its derivatives, rendered "destroy," is used by the Saviour in other places, in order to see that it does not here mean to annihilate, but to bring into a condition of ruin, the destruction of use and not of being. Thus it is applied to the bottles that burst and were spoiled, to the sheep that was "lost," as also to the missing piece of money, and to the "lost" prodigal; in all which cases the idea of annihilation is excluded. And this, moreover, is the very word employed by the demons to denote torment, when they cried out in the synagogue of Capernaum to Christ, (Mark i, 24,) “Art thou come to destroy us?" the meaning of which is made plain by the words of the demons on another and similar occasion, who asked: "Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" And this instance is the more noteworthy because it relates directly to the punishment which awaited the fallen angels, and proves that in such a connection to destroy and to torment are synonymous.

The same remarks will apply in explanation of the passages

in which the wicked are said to "perish;" for it is usually the same word in the original which is rendered "destroy" and "perish," and expresses the utter ruin but not the annihilation of the sinner. Indeed, after we have settled the meaning of the word "life" as expressive of condition rather than mere being, we may take the words "destroy" and "perish" in their most literal sense. The sinner's well-being shall "perish" utterly, or be wholly "destroyed."

4. The annihilation theory does not harmonize easily with the fact of the resurrection of the wicked. There would seem to be no propriety in such an event if they are to be immediately judged and annihilated. Why not judge the soul according to its character and punish it with extinction, without recalling the body to life? If the penalty of the divine law be literal destruction to body and soul, we should suppose that when a wicked man dies that penalty was executed on the body which moulders back to dust, and that nothing remained but to inflict the same upon the soul, then or at the general judgment. Why must the body die twice? What end is to be served by summoning it from the grave to destroy it again? This has always been a puzzling question for the annihilationists, nor have they returned a satisfactory answer. And the difficulty is increased when we consider the difference between the resurrection-body and that which died. The Bible is explicit in assuring us that the resurrection-state is, in important respects, unlike our present mortal condition; that the future body is not a mere reproduction of the body which died, but one adapted to a more refined spiritlike state of existence. This is beyond question true of the righteous, and there is not a word of intimation that the same general fact will not hold good of the wicked. Now if the latter are to "come forth" from "their graves" to be judged, as Christ assures us will be the case, for what purpose is this new bodily organization bestowed? Merely that it may be destroyed again? The transaction wears no such appearance. It seems rather to be the preparative for an abiding condition, the reuniting of soul and body that together they may enter upon a new, even an eternal state, in which shall be reaped the harvest of which earthly life was the seed-time. How much more rational and scriptural is the idea that the resurrection of the wicked will complete the likeness,

so imperfect on earth, of soul and body, so that the character will be portrayed eternally in the physical appearance of the lost; deformity being in hell united with sin, as in heaven beauty will be associated with holiness.

5. The annihilation theory is inconsistent with various words and phrases by which Christ describes the future punishment of the wicked. These words imply continued existence, during which the punishment is borne. One instance occurs in connection with the last point named, to wit, the resurrection, as our Saviour says: "The hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation," or condemnation. That is, they rise only to receive a portion of sorrow and shame, as being under the frown of God. And this is still more clearly the meaning, if we regard Christ not as making a new statement, but as calling to the minds of his hearers the well-known words of Daniel, which are so strikingly parallel that they were probably in his own mind and must have been recalled instantly to theirs: "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Thus life is in both passages promised to the righteous, while to the wicked the one predicts a coming forth to "condemnation," and the other an "awaking" to "shame and everlasting contempt," words which, thus synonymously used, admit of no consistent meaning on the theory of annihilation. Take, also, the fearful words in the judgment scene: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, prepared for the devil and his angels." These words point out not merely eternal results, but an eternal condition of being. What can be meant by "departing" and "going away" from God "into everlasting fire," but eternal exclusion from the joys of heaven and endurance of the pains of hell? To say that "everlasting fire" has reference only to the permanence of the effect, and means a fire that burns up a thing so completely that it has no being afterward, is to affirm an unnatural meaning of a very simple phrase. To kindle a fire that entirely consumed an article placed in it has been done in

millions of instances, and is in fact a matter of daily occurrence, but we are not in the habit of calling such a fire "everlasting." Everlasting means ever-existing, and denotes the continuance of the thing to which the epithet is applied. Nor is the case at all at variance which is quoted from Jude: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." This does not mean, as annihilationists claim, that the material cities of the plain are "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire;" that their overthrow by fire was complete and perpetual, and that the fire is said to be "eternal" because its effect was enduring. The sacred writer is not speaking of the material cities, the dwellings and public buildings which were burned, but, according to a common mode of expression, of the cities in the sense of the inhabitants, as appears from his specifying their characteristic sins. Of these fornicators he says, precisely as Jesus did of the rich sinner in hell, that they are now "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire," just as in the previous verse he had said of the fallen angels, that they were "reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." And even if the material cities were meant, the fire may have been termed eternal, as being supposed still to be burning, that country being alluded to by authors of that day as still "smoking." There is no proof, then, that "everlasting fire" means anything but fire that shall burn ⚫ on forever, implying that those who are sent into it are consigned not to annihilation but to endless suffering. The same thing may be argued from the phrase "everlasting punishment." The Greek word koλλaoiç means chastisement, punishment, and refers to the infliction and experience of suffering, It occurs in but one other passage in the Bible, (1 John iv, 18,) and is there rendered torment. "Everlasting punishment" as a phrase, naturally, if not necessarily, means everlasting inflic tion of suffering or torment, which of course excludes the idea of annihilation.

But the idea of the eternal continuance of the suffering of the wicked, as indicated by the expressions under examination, does not depend upon the word "everlasting," merely as the epithet of the "fire" and of the "punishment;" nor yet upon the natural