in every particular in which distinctive Universalism was assumed to be true, distinctive Orthodoxy was untrue; and the truth and the error did not pertain to physical science, to political economy, to the industrial or the æsthetic arts, but to the highest interests of the human soul, and hence they involved antagonisms that can never admit of amicable adjustments, or even a temporary truce the antagonism between right and wrong, between holiness and sin, between God and the evil spirit personified as Satan: here again both parties were agreed. There are, indeed, very important truths which all religions-Heathen, Jew and Christian-hold in common: there is a larger number of important truths held alike by Catholic and Protestant: and the number is yet larger, far larger, which all the sects of Protestantism heartily accept. Looking at the opportunities in the light of the modern fraternities and coöperations, it may seem as if half a century ago Orthodox and Universalist might, without compromise, have magnified their agreements and minimized their differences. History, however, notes not what might or should have been, but what actually was; and it is the truth of history that, in that earlier time, both parties met for war far more frequently than for pacific coöperation in applying the part of Christianity which they held in common. Hence the staple of their mutual work was controversy. There was chronic war-a war of principles — the Universalist affirming the universality of God's Fatherhood; the Orthodox affirming that all save the elect, or the converted," were the children of the devil. There was a war of texts; and the Parables of the Sheep and

Goats and the Rich Man and Lazarus, the case of Judas of whom it had been said that it had been good for him had he never been born, the passage describing the Sin against the Holy Ghost, and a few other examples given in the Book-the number was very small — and particularly the word aion, assumed and denied to be the Greek for eternity, and aionion, assumed and denied to be the Greek for unending duration,' and the words judgment, gehenna and hades, were perpetually on

1 Though biography must not forget itself in attempting a treatise on theology, the need of just enough of this to give a distinct setting to one who was to take a commanding share in the endeavor to correct what was thought to be harmfully erroneous, in the popular beliefs of his time, will not be called in question. As respects the passage in Matthew xxv. 36, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal" the Greek aionion-translated "everlasting " and "eternal," in Revised Version "eternal" in both clauses- is, of course, the salient word. Hence the bulk of the old-time controversy as to whether endless punishment is affirmed depended upon the meaning of aion and the Hebrew equivalent olam, the Universalists insisting that neither word has the meaning of eternity. After passing in review the classic use of the word aion, Dr. Edward Beecher, page 140 of his " History of Opinions," etc., adds:

"I have thus shown that an appeal to the ancients, like that of Aristotle, can never sustain the assertion that eternity is the original sense of aion. I have shown that for many centuries this sense was unknown, and that it came in only in the later ages of the Greek language. To translate aion eternity in the passage of Aristotle which has been considered would do him a great wrong, for it would represent him as ignorantly contradicting the universal usages of those to whom he appeals." Of the Hebrew equivalent Dr. Beecher, pages 141, 142 adds: — "What then, is the meaning of olam? Is it eternity? I answer, no. It is derived from a verb denoting to hide, or to conceal, and denotes a period of time past or future, the boundaries of which are concealed, obscure, unseen, or unknown. So say Taylor and Fürst in their Hebrew Concordances. It is true of eternity, past and future, that their boundaries are unseen and unknown. But it is also true of other undefined periods that are not eternal, and that may be called ages or dispensations. Of olam thus viewed aion is the universal representative."

the rack of exegesis. Exegesis? It would be nearer the "truth of history" to say that while the Universalists habitually gave what they thought true expositions of the several passages and terms in dispute, their antagonists were content to take the inherited meanings for granted, contemptuously refusing to explain or give reasons, making the avowals matters of course. As every appetite grows by what it feeds upon, the perpetual controversy, of course, begot a love of controversy; and to say that the disputants always aimed, in judicial temper, to get at the simple truth, never actuated by an ambition to get a victory or what would pass for victory, would be to say that they were not human. Let it be said in passing that in the last two decades the much scouted Universalist expositions have been largely sustained by the Revised Version, and by such scholars as Edward Beecher, Tayler Lewis, and F. W. Farrar.

When Mr. Miner's ministry in Lowell began, the situation was of a nature to compel doctrinal explanation and elucidation, the exposition of certain Biblical passages, a constant protest against misrepresentation and particularly a defence of Universalism against the chronic charge that its tendency was immoral, and that failing "in the hour of death," it was in the "awful hour" usually renounced and condemned by those who in full health had been its most zealous defenders. The controversial temper had indeed begun slightly to wane, for the Knapp and Smith crusade had forced it to an unusual height, yet it was literally "on" and the faithful Universalist preacher always had his armor on for defence,

and the Sword of the Spirit and of truth drawn for aggressive endeavor.

Thus far only fundamental principles

Salvation by

Grace on the one hand, and Salvation by Unpurchased and relentless Love on the other hand-have been outlined. The reader to whom the great subject is not familiar, is now urged to give patient attention to a more detailed summary of Universalist beliefs, and the history of their development—to the positive antecedents and outcome of Modern Universalism.

CHAPTER VII.

ESSENTIALS OF MODERN UNIVERSALISM.

UNIVERSALISTS believe that their distinctive tenet

is as old as the Bible; that it is the kernel in the shell of the Abrahamic promises; that it was at least occult in many of the Prophetic utterances, even if not distinctly in the thought of the prophets; that it is in the words of Jesus and the Apostles; that it was the faith of the Greek Fathers; and that all through the many epochs of the Christian Church—sometimes very clearly, at other times vaguely-it has had its champions. But in the technical sense of the term, in which the doctrine of the final salvation of all souls is made to stand out with sharp distinctiveness, and to find believers anxious to be known as such, "standing up to be counted," and asserting and applying the doctrine through the agencies of a distinct organization, it had no existence prior to the coming of Rev. John Murray to America in 1770. The adjective "Modern," as applied to Universalism, will not therefore be regarded as a concession that the doctrine itself is at all new. The term "Modern," however, has a somewhat specific meaning, being commonly used to denote the essential doctrines which first had expression in Ballou's