Where the places are, we
know not; but blessed beyond all words be ignorance like this! We know
because we believe in righteousness and truth that there is no hell
except that which we create for ourselves; and that is in this world,
in any world where there is a breach of a divine law. But has the great
hope gone? Has doubt touched that, so that it has shrivelled and become
as nothing? That I shall have occasion to touch on a little more at
length in a moment; and so I leave it here with this suggestion.
I wish you now to note, and to note with a great deal of care, that
doubt, criticism, question, investigation, have no power to destroy
anything. People talk as though, if you doubted a thing, it
disappeared, as though doubt had magical power to annihilate in some
way a truth. If you really do doubt an important divine truth, it may
disturb and trouble you for a while; but the truth remains just the
same. I remember some years ago a parishioner came to me, an
intelligent lady, and said, "Mr. Savage, I have about lost my belief in
any future life." I smiled, and said: "I am sorry for you, if it
interferes with your comfort and peace; but remember one thing, neither
your doubt nor my belief touches or changes the fact." The eternal life
is not something to be puffed away with a breath, if it be real. So
rest right there in the firm assurance that whatever is true is true,
and rests on the eternal foundation of the permanence of God; and
asking questions about it, digging away at its foundations, testing it
in any and all sorts of ways, cannot by any possibility injure it.
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