This belief is taken away.
And then, lastly, that which I have touched on by implication already,
the belief in endless punishment is taken away. Are you sorry? Does
anybody wish something put in the place of this? The belief that all
those except the elect, church members, those who have been through a
special process called conversion, these, including all the millions on
millions outside of Christendom and from the beginning until to-day,
have gone down to the flame that is never quenched, the worm that never
dies, to linger on in useless torture forever and ever? Simply a
monument of what is monstrously called the justice of God! This is
gone.
Now, friends, just ask yourselves, as you go home, as you think over
what I have said this morning, as to whether there is anything else
lost.
Is there anything of value taken away? Let me run over now in parallel
fashion another catalogue to place opposite this one, so that we may
see as to what has been our loss and as to whether there has been any
gain.
In the place of the little, petty universe of Hebrew dream, what have
we now? This magnificent revelation of the Copernican students; a
universe infinite in its reach and in its grandeur; a universe fit at
last to be the home of an infinite God; a universe grand enough to
clothe him and express him, to manifest and reveal him; a universe
boundless; a universe that has grown through the ages and is growing
still, and is to unfold more and more of the divine beauty and glory
forevermore.
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