No one who has watched the signs of the times can doubt that this year will see a great controversy on what the theologians call Eschatology, or the doctrine of last things. Questions relating to the second coming of Christ, the resurrection, the judgment, the final state of all men, are assuming a larger place in the thought of Christendom than they have had for a generation or two, at least. This being the case, it is well to understand what are the precise points at issue. Two questions have been raised thus far: 1. Is there a resurrection of the body? In other words, Is the resurrection-body, in a real sense, the same body—though not the identical body in all its particles—that is buried? 2. What is the nature and the duration of future punishment? As regards the second question, which is at present the more prominent of the two, it is well to note that the opponents of the doctrine of eternal punishment have shifted their ground, so that the arguments that were effective a generation ago are most of them obsolete now. The line of battle must be formed over again, and the contest must be carried on with different weapons. The prevalent view among Universalists now is that sin is punished both in this world and in the next; but that punishment, being remedial in its object and effects, leads to a final reconciliation between God and the sinner—if not in this world, then in the next. The “orthodox” people of a generation ago were compelled to prove that there was such a thing as future punishment at all. Now they may spare themselves that trouble. That there will be punishment of the impenitent hereafter is not now denied by any considerable number of people; what the punishment will be, and how long it will continue, are the vital questions of to-day. The questions connected with Eschatology are not barren speculations, but involve problems of the greatest practical moment to every man. There is no graver practical question connected with religion than the final destiny of men. These problems will, no doubt, engage the attention of the best minds and the profoundest scholarship of all denominations.—Examiner, Jan. 24, 1878.