George Eliot said that she estimated her entire moral condition by her
capacity of sympathy. We may imagine then the horror of the situation if
we have to think of our friends as being in everlasting torment.
Surely this is a strong argument for Restoration. We might endure, and
even rejoice in, a mild degree of suffering on the part of friends, if
we knew that such was a necessary process of purification, and that by
and by they would rise to eternal happiness. But to think of them as
being forever in torment--inflicted for punishment, and not for
purification--would be unspeakable torture. We have indeed heard of
zealots who taught that the saved would even rejoice in the sufferings
of the damned, as the effect of God's glorious justice. For the credit
of humanity we would believe that such lurid representations were rare,
and but the product of temporary excitement, or perhaps a mistaken zeal
for orthodoxy.
* * * * *
I was lately staying at a Presbyterian Manse. The minister was from
home, but his wife engaged me in several topics of conversation. Among
other things she instanced the case of a family some members of which
were saved, and some were lost; and she asked me if there was any means
of explaining away the agony of such a separation.
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