If there are any who doubt the life beyond the grave and salvation based
upon redemption, no one can doubt the salvation of all men, and of each
individual man, if they will accept the evidence of the destruction of
the personal life, and follow the true way to safety by bringing their
personal wills into harmony with the will of God. Let each man endowed
with reason ask himself, What is life? and What is death? and let him
try to give to life and death any other meaning than that revealed by
Jesus, and he will find that any attempt to find in life a meaning not
based upon the renunciation of self, the service of humanity, of the son
of man, is utterly futile. It cannot be doubted that the personal life
is condemned to destruction, and that a life conformable to the will of
God alone gives the possibility of salvation. It is not much in
comparison with the sublime belief in the future life! It is not much,
but it is sure.
I am lost with my companions in a snow-storm. One of them assures me
with the utmost sincerity that he sees a light in the distance, but it
is only a mirage which deceives us both; we strive to reach this light,
but we never can find it. Another resolutely brushes away the snow; he
seeks and finds the road, and he cries to us, "Go not that way, the
light you see is false, you will wander to destruction; here is the
road, I feel it beneath my feet; we are saved." It is very little, we
say. We had faith in that light that gleamed in our deluded eyes, that
told us of a refuge, a warm shelter, rest, deliverance,--and now in
exchange for it we have nothing but the road. Ah, but if we continue to
travel toward the imaginary light, we shall perish; if we follow the
road, we shall surely arrive at a haven of safety.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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