Good men are trying to believe what in their hearts they
repudiate. They think it a sign of soundness in the faith to believe in
the doctrine of eternal torment. If they really believed it they could
not rest in their beds at night, nor follow their usual avocations by
day. But happily they do not really believe it.
Thus the theory of eternal torment has this everlasting drawback that
men will not believe it. It may be, and has been, accounted the orthodox
view; and men may try to believe it, but as a matter of fact they do
not. To think that a person will suffer forever, and ever, is beyond
actual belief. Just think for a while of torment without end. Lengthen
out the time in your imagination, and when you have reached the utmost
stretch of imagination, then think that eternity is only beginning, and
that through eternal cycles of aeons it will go on forever and ever,
and ever.
It used to be a favorite method of illustrating the eternity of torment
to suppose that after a million of years one grain of soil were taken
from the earth; then after another million of years, another grain; then
after another million of years, another grain; and so on until the
whole of the earth had disappeared; then repeat the proceeding ten
thousand millions of times; and then eternity would be only beginning!
Imagine, if you can, a soul in torment all these uncounted ages; and
then think of the process being repeated over and over again, without
end, without end, without end! No man can believe it.
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