Article November 23, 1912 Issue

A discussion as to the nature of hell appeals to mankind...

John H. Wheeler

Kansas City (Mo.) Star

A discussion as to the nature of hell appeals to mankind in proportion to their ethical mood to receive it, but the essential premise upon which to search for a truthful conclusion concerning it must first include a sympathetic and faith-lighted conception of God and His infinite kingdom of heaven, in order to comprehend understandingly the negative or converse nature of this claim of evil which is commonly styled hell, for its whole pretense, place, and power is the very antipode of God and His creation, even as Jesus said: "A liar, and the father of it."

The Pharisees once asked Jesus "when the kingdom of God should come." The deep unrest of sin and its full measure of human wretchedness in mortal life impelled them to demand of the great prophet his views on this mooted question. The reply was: "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." And one is forced to conclude that the spiritual culture which is gained through self-abnegation alone reveals this inner heaven, while "an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil;" and this, in turn, is the essence of hell, seen daily in every walk of mortal experience.

Jesus once narrated how a Pharisee and a publican went up into the temple to pray. Their differing methods presented a striking contrast, and served to reveal the awakened germ of genuine goodness in the self-condemned consciousness of the contrite sinner who, as he stood afar off and "would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven," said: "God be merciful to me a sinner;" while the unrepentant and austere self-righteous Pharisee's prayer seemed a parody on humility. Christian Science teaches that we make our own heaven through righteous thought and living during our mortal experience, or else we perpetuate our own hell through sinful thought and action.

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