AN ELLOLOGICAL PROBLEM,

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2487, 19 June 1888, Page 2

AN ELLOLOGICAL PROBLEM,

TO THE EDITOn. Sm,—"Do you believe in Hell?" Such was the question asked me, not by a Salvation Army officer. My reply was naturally, "First, kindly define 'Hell;' secondly, define believe." Whatever the views entertained on Hell are, after all the practical point is, what you mean by believe. All concepts of Hell are sufficiently deterrent, whether yon take it as a material lake of firo and brimstone, or as the stings of conscience after a death sentence past repeal.. If you believe in harmony with the Buddhists that you havo a new start in life after death, proportionate to the use of your opportunities in this life, or if you hold that death is annihilation, in either caso yon, if worth your salt here, havo a deeper dread before you than cither of the more orthodox beliefs can supply. Let it be granted then that all men of a certain culture have a concept of Hell, really and familiarly, if indefiint-;l\\ represented to them. The stumbling block is however in the " believe." What is belief? The child' starts in life with a belief m a universal papa if not a universal mamma. If kindly brought up he looks on everything, animate and inanimate are to him alike endowed with life the same as he feels effervescing through every .nerve and artery, he looks, I sav, on everything as kind. He puts his finger in the candle flame that laughs so brightly at him and finds it can smile and be a villain. His universal belief is checked, and perhaps the first experiment, but more often two or three more, teach him the- lesson that a candle burns. A similar experience or similar experiences, or in the case nf a forward child, combined processes of unconscious deduction and induction, teach him that firo burns. Does he go fooling about the candle, or the fire, then, with his little fingers? No, the burnt child dreads the lite ; in plain language ho believes that fire bums. 1 f this is an accurate account of belief, I am afraid but few believe in hell.— Yours trul3 - , (Juris.