15 JUNE 1901, Page 14

IS HELL LOSS OF BEING ? [To TAE EDITOR OF

THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—The correspondence in your columns on this subject forcibly recalls some lines of Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton). Perhaps you may think it worth while to recall them to your readers ?-

" Yet it may be that th' abyss Of the lost is only this,

That for them all things to come Are inanimate and dumb.

And immortal life they steep In dishonourable sleep :

While no power of pause is given To the inheritors of Heaven, And the holiest still are those Who are furthest from repose, And yet onward, onward, press To a loftier godliness; Still becoming, more than being, Apprehending, more than seeing."

The above lines will be found in the last stanza of " Requiescat in Pace."—I am. Sir, &c., H. B.