s him free to choose aright.
There is one exception to be noted, a very, very rare exception. There may
be _extreme_ instances where such a prayer may not be offered; where the
spirit of prayer is withdrawn. But such are very rare and extreme, and the
conviction regarding that will be unmistakable beyond asking any
questions.

And I cannot resist the conviction--I greatly dislike to say this, I would
much rather not if I regarded either my own feelings or yours. But I
cannot resist the conviction--listen very quietly, so I may speak in
quietest tones--that there are people ... in that lower, lost world ...
who are there ... because some one failed to put his life in touch with
God, and pray.

<u>The Place Where God is Not.</u>

Having said that much let me go on to say this further, and please let me
say it all in softest sobbing voice--there is a hell. There must be a
hell. You may leave this Bible sheer out of your reckoning in the matter.
Still there must be a place for which that word of ugliest associations is
the word to use. _Philosophically_ there must be a hell. That is the name
for the place where God is not; for the place where they will gather
together who insist on leaving God out. God out! There can be no worse
hell than that! God away! Man held back by no restraints!

I am very clear it is _not_ what men have pictured it to be. It is not
what my childish fancy saw and shrank from terrified. And, please let us
be very careful that we never consign anybody there, in our thinking or
speaking about them. When that life whose future might be questioned has
gone the most we can say is that we leave it with a God infinitely just
and the personification of love.

There has been in some quarters an unthinking consigning of persons to a
lost world. And there has been in our day a clean swing of the pendulum
to the other extreme. Both drifts are to be dreaded. Let us deal very
tenderly here, yet with a right plainness in our tenderness. We are to
warn men faithfully. We know the Book's plain teaching that these who
prefer to leave God out "shall go away." The going is of their own accord
and choice. Regarding particular ones we do not know and are best silent.
The grave is closing. Let us deal with the living.

One day at the close of the morning hour at a Bible conference in the
Alleghany Mountains a young woman came up for a moment's conversation. She
spoke about a friend, not a professing Christian, f