It is a remarkable fact that the discussion which has
more than once been raised in our columns as to the Christian doctrine of retribution and its continuance, has now been revived. by Canon Farrar's striking sermons, in the pages of the Guardian, and that not a few clergymen maintain in that journal that the doctrine of the endlessness of moral evil, and of the pain which is involved in evil, is nowhere taught in the New Testament, while there is much teaching of St. Paul's which distinctly points in the opposite direction. It is evident, moreover, that this.view is taken not by the lax and latitudinarian party in our Chum*, so much as by the earnest and enthusiastic party who lay most stress on the conquest over indifference and frigidity of soul. Mr. Brooke Lambert, for instance, in this week's Guardian insists that if aalvation comes through 'hope,' as the apostle says, the more you teach men to hope for their moral regeneration, and. the more you represent God as intending and providing for it,. the more chance you have of practical success. Certainly very little success has come of the assumption that we are Bawd by fear.
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