Christian Doctrine Of Hell

If there is a hell, that is the most important fact in the universe. Compared with an eternity of torment, all that this little life has to offer is but as nothing.

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Excerpt:

Many readers will be astonished at what Mr. Wheeler tells them. We have read the Bible, they will say, and never saw these things. That is because they read it without knowledge, or without attention.

Reading is not done with the eyes only, but also with the brain; and the same sentences will make various impressions, according as the brain is rich or poor in facts and principles. Even the great, strong mind of Darwin had to be plentifully stored with biological knowledge before he could see the meaning of certain simple facts, and discover the wonderful law of Natural Selection.

Those who have studied the works of Spencer, Tylor, Lubbock, Frazer, and such authors, will not be astonished at the contents of this volume. But they will probably find some points they had overlooked; some familiar points presented with new force; and some fresh views, whose novelty is not their only virtue: for Mr. Wheeler is not a slavish follower of even the greatest teachers, he thinks for himself, and shows others what he has seen with his own eyes.

I hope this little volume will find many readers. Its doing so will please the author, for every writer wishes to be read; why else, indeed, should he write? Only less will be the pleasure of his friend who pens this Preface. I am sure the book will be instructive to most of those into whose hands it falls; to the rest, the few who really study and reflect, it will be stimulating and suggestive. Greater praise the author would not desire; so much praise cannot often be given with sincerity.

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I am not one of those who find in phallicism the key to all the mysteries of mythology. All the striking phenomena of nature-the alternations of light and darkness, sun and moon, the terrors of the thunderstorm, and of pain, disease and death, together with his own dreams and imaginations-contributed to evoke the wonder and superstition of early man. But investigation of early religion shows it often nucleated around the phenomena of generation. The first and final problem of religion concerns the production of things. Man's own body was always nearer to him than sun, moon, and stars; and early man, thinking not in words but in things, had to express the very idea of creation or production in terms of his own body. It was so in Egypt, where the symbol, from being the sign of production, became also the sign of life, and of regeneration and resurrection. It was so in Babylonia and Assyria, as in ancient Greece and Troy, and is so till this day in India.