it taken him away from us?
Rather, as the result of all this question and criticism, at last we
have found him, found him who has been hidden away for ages, found the
man, divine son of God, son of man, brother, friend, inspirer,
companion, helper. It has done for Jesus the grandest service of which
we can conceive.

And now one more point. People used to suppose they knew all about the
next world. They knew where heaven was and where hell was, and who were
to be the inhabitants of either place, and why. Doubt and question have
been at work here, and now we do not know where heaven is; and we do
not know where hell is, except that it is within the heart of those
that are not in accord with the divine life. 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.
Enforce thus this idea, simple as it seems, because thousands of men
and women at the present time are made to tremble by utterances from
the pulp