The religious world is just now greatly excited over the question of the endless suffering of the wicked. The commotion created by the strong utterances of Henry Ward Beecher against the doctrine, and the refusal by the Congregationalists to install a minister because he denied it, have brought to light the fact that outspoken opposition to the dogma is more extensive than was supposed, indifference still greater, and belief in and defense of the doctrine quite weak indeed. The papers are commenting freely upon this state of things, and the old orthodox doctrine is passing through a severe ordeal of agitation and inquiry. A correspondent of the Detroit Evening News now boldly affirms that the professed defenders of the doctrine do not really believe it. This, doubtless, is not far from the truth; for, as Bp. Newton says, “You cannot seriously believe it, nor reconcile it to God and goodness.” This writer says:— “The Chicago Ministers’ Meeting last Monday morning closed a protracted and specially earnest discussion of the Final Doom of the Wicked by their half-yearly dinner at the Grand Pacific Hotel.” “So says a floating paragraph. The satire is not misplaced. Nothing has so undermined the popular belief in the endlessness of hell as the indifference which orthodox Christians manifest with reference to the doctrine. If it is true that people are to be punished everlastingly for the sins of this short life, it seems to us that those who think it to be so take the matter very coolly, and manifest an inexplicable indifference to the direful fate of their neighbors and friends; yea, in many cases, of their own kinsmen. If they really believed this important doctrine, they would make the very skies echo with appeals to flee from the wrath to come. But they go on just as the world’s people do, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, and in all possible ways giving the contradiction to their creeds. Whoever hears the doctrine of everlasting punishment mentioned now-a-days in our pulpits, except incidentally and (as it were) apologetically?—whereas it is the keystone of orthodoxy, and, if it be true, is the most appalling disclosure to be found in God’s word.”