DIVES AND LAZARUS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 466, 26 April 1890, Page 4

DIVES AND LAZARUS.

THE PUNISHMENT OE SIN. Auckland, April 21. The City Hall was crowded to its utmost capacity on Sunday evening, when Mr Varley dealt with the subject of eternal punishments and rewards, taking for his text the 16th chapter of Luke and the 19th verse, particularly with reference to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Mr Varley first replied to the arguments of the conditional immortalists, quoting the Scripturalassertion, “They that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation.” Dealing with the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Mr Varley drew a very terrible picture of the torment in which the former was placed after he had been cast into hell. The rich man, he pointed out, had sight, for he saw Lazarus afar off in Abraham’s bosom ; he had consciousness, because he begged for a drop of water to cool his pai-ched tongue ; and he had memory, for he remembered his relations on the earth, so that the whole man was there, although hi 3 body had been buried. Mr Varley drew a very marked 1 distinction between “ torture” and “ torment,” the expression being that which was applicable to the condition of the wicked in hell. Torment, he said, arose from one’s own sense of wrong-doing, and it should be clearly seen that material fire would be even gladly welcomed by many men who had while upon this earth sent others of their fellows to eternal perdition ; they would be downright thankful for the fire to transfer their torments from the mental to the physical. There were no wives in heaven, there were no relations of brotherhood there. In hell man was a sinner still, and sin being continuous, punishment must also be continuous. Somebody had said, “Would ic be possible for a man to be in heaven and to know that one of his sons was in such a condition in hell and yet be happy?” and he (Mr Varley) replied in the affirmative. When in heaven a man would have no remorse as touching the damnation of one of his own sons. -The reason why the rich man wanted his brothers to be warned was because he was afraid to meet them in hell, because of the bad example he had set them in his lifetime, and because of a fear that they would add to his torment. Speaking in this connection, Mr Varley said he would rather be burned to ashes than take the place of Charles Darwin, on account of the harvest that man must reap for the amount of error that his works have disseminated and are still disseminating on the earth.