as the reader will clearly
perceive before I get through.

So far as our version favors eternal punishment, the fact is due
chiefly to a wrong translation; and it is difficult to suppress the
conviction that the translators, in much of their work of this kind,
were perfectly conscious of the wrong they were doing. The word _hell_
in every place where it is found (with one or two exceptions, where
the heathen hell is referred to) is the rendering of a word that has
no such meaning. The word _everlasting_ combines a wrong rendering and
a wrong exegesis. These are the main points. They are the Jachin and
Boaz of the orthodox temple. But the translators have sought to favor
their doctrines in other ways; sometimes by supplying words not found
in the text, and sometimes by rejecting words that are there.

My article was devoted chiefly to these last, particularly a wrong use
of the Greek article, and the rejection of an important word, when it
conflicted with their views, though they often employ it at other
times.

I say with the fullest confidence that the doctrine of eternal
punishment is not in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. It came into the
church chiefly with converts who had believed it before their
conversion, and continued to believe it by a misconstruction of the
Scriptures.

THE SON OF GOD.

By not paying particular attention to what I said, my critic has
misrepresented me in an important particular; and has repeated the
idea a number of times, namely, that I deny the sonship of Jesus
Christ. I simply refer to some passages to show the importance of the
Greek article, and some of these have the expression, "the Son of
God," when they ought to have been rendered "a Son of God," or "a Son
of a God" not only because the article is omitted in the Greek, but it
is the language of Satan, and of the heathen, and therefore more
characteristic than the words _the_ Son of God. The sonship of our
Lord has evidence enough, without that of Satan and the heathen,
especially as the evangelists have represented them as giving no such
testimony.

The reference in my article to insanity and suicide was incidental;
and whether strictly correct or not, the thousand that have been
ruined in this way is a picture sufficiently frightful, and shows that
the Christian religion has been greatly misapprehended; for in its
purity, it never has, and never can, produce a single case of either
insanity or suicide.

THEOLOGICAL