dmit_ that this word is used several times in a limited extent--as for
instance, 'The everlasting hills.' Of course this does not mean that
there never will be a time when the hills will cease to stand; the
expression here is evidently figurative, but it implies eternity. The
hills shall remain as long as the earth lasts, and no hand has power to
remove them but that Eternal One which first called them into being; _so
the state of the soul_ remains the same after death as long as the soul
exists, and no one has power to alter it. The same word is often applied
to denote the existence of God--'the Eternal God.' Can we limit the word
when applied to him? Because occasionally used in a limited sense, we
must not infer it is always so. 'Everlasting' plainly means in Scripture
'without end;' it is only to be explained figuratively when it is evident
it cannot be interpreted in any other way."

We do not discuss whether Dr. Cumming's interpretation accords with the
meaning of the New Testament writers: we simply point to the fact that
the text becomes elastic for him when he wants freer play for his
prejudices, while he makes it an adamantine barrier against the admission
that mercy will ultimately triumph--that God, _i.e._, Love, will be all
in all. He assures us that he does not "delight to dwell on the misery
of the lost:" and we believe him. That misery does not seem to be a
question of feeling with him, either one way or the other. He does not
merely resign himself to the awful mystery of eternal punishment; he
contends for it. Do we object, he asks, {90} to everlasting happiness?
then why object to everlasting misery?--reasoning which is perhaps felt
to be cogent by theologians who anticipate the everlasting happiness for
themselves, and the everlasting misery for their neighbors.

The compassion of some Christians has been glad to take refuge in the
opinion that the Bible allows the supposition of annihilation for the
impenitent; but the rigid sequence of Dr. Cumming's reasoning will not
admit of this idea. He sees that flax is made into linen, and linen into
paper; that paper, when burned, partly ascends as smoke and then again
descends in rain, or in dust and carbon. "Not one particle of the
original flax is lost, although there may be not one particle that has
not undergone an entire change: annihilation is not, but change of form
is. _It will be thus with our bodies at the resurrection_. The death of