"Thou art troubled about the unpardonable sin, thou sayest?" the preacher said to a young man walking by his side.
"Yes," replied the youth addressed. "I've been a bad one, but now I really want to be a Christian. I fear I have committed the unpardonable sin. Do you suppose—" he asked in a voice that choked a little, "that God could pardon such a sinner as I am?"
"With God all things are possible," reverently replied the other, laying a kindly hand on the young man's shoulder. "The only sin that seems to me to be unpardonable is that unrighteous obstinacy that forever refuses the offer of salvation."
And into the old man's face came an expression of sorrow.
"But if the offer of salvation is forever passed by, what then?" asked another.
"I believe the soul is lost."
"You mean the soul is in a place of fire and torment, literal hell fire?" asked the first speaker.
"I said I believe the soul is lost."
"Then you don't believe in hell?" asked another.
"No," answered David Bright; "not as some believe in it,—literal fire. Spirit or soul is, I believe, immortal. It lives on. To know God, and Jesus Christ, His Son, is eternal life; not to know them is death. To obey the laws of God here on earth means a foretaste of heaven; to disobey them, means a foretaste of hell."