WESLEYANISM AND HELL.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Whatever may have been the opinions of John Wesley in regard to endless torment, it is unquestionable that Wesleyanism, as a whole (despite its many merits), gives an extreme prominence to hell, especially as preached in Corn- wall, but with little, if any, regard to the Bible qualification of divine chastisement as a paternal discipline, having the child's good for its final and certain result. Thus in Deuteronomy (viii. 5) God says to Israel : " Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee." But both Wesleyanism and the Salvation Army do not appear to "consider in their heart" that God spoke truly when thus indicating the real object of hell, and any other form of paternal punishment. Consequently, both these denominations too often plunge souls into a condition, first of terror and then of presumption, by withholding from them the actual nature of salvation, which is a practically fruitful attraction to the Divine Fatherhood in
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