_2. "Everlasting Punishment."_--"These shall go away into everlasting
punishment." Matt. 25:46. It is everlasting punishment, not everlasting
punishing. The punishment is everlasting death--"who shall be punished
with everlasting destruction." 2 Thess. 1:9.

The truth of the utter destruction of sinners is awful enough, but it
commends itself to every thought of justice and mercy; for sin must be
cleansed from a perfect universe. But the unscriptural view of
everlasting conscious torment that never reaches the point of full
punishment, is unthinkable. Yet it is urged as a doctrine, and contended
for as vital to Christianity.

The following description is taken from a book written for children,
entitled "The Sight of Hell." It is printed in Dublin--for children.

"Little child, if you go to hell, there will be a devil at your
side to strike you. He will go on striking you every day,
forever and ever, without ever stopping. The first stroke will
make your body as bad as Job's, covered from head to foot with
sores and ulcers. The second stroke will make your body twice
as bad as the body of Job.... How then will your body be after
the devil has been striking it every moment for a hundred
million years without stopping?"--_Quoted in the London Present
Truth, April 30, 1914._

What a relief to turn from this to the Bible doctrine of the
"everlasting destruction" of the second death, terrible though it be!

_3. "Everlasting Fire," "Eternal Fire," "Unquenchable Fire."_--All these