With the heathen the same argument holds. He would be a bold man who would say that no heathen is saved. We know that some of them rose to a high moral plane; indeed such as would largely, if not entirely, fit them for the inheritance of the saints. But they had not knowledge of the Saviour. That was all they needed. You will say, perhaps, that that was everything. It was; but it could be supplied very quickly once they crossed the boundary of time. They would meet angel friends there who would soon give them the required information. We can conceive, from what we know of them when here, that they would believe at once, and very soon be fit for at least the beginning of eternal joy.
There have been those who by the light of nature, or by the illumination of the divine Spirit, attained to marvellous perfection; yet, never heard the Saviour's name. Just now I notice that an orthodox divine names Socrates as a case in point. In cases not so marked we can believe that disclosures of truth that they could not learn here, may transform them into saints.
Surely this is a sane, as well as a brighter prospect than was entertained not so very long ago. I recall those lines of the Hymn by Dr. Watts, which I learned when quite young:
"There is a dreadful hell
Of everlasting pains;
Where sinners must with devils dwell,
In darkness, fire, and chains."
Happily the sentiment of the Hymn did not make much impression on me. It is a great boon to children that sometimes they are not very thoughtful.
I wonder if Robert Browning ever learned such Hymns when a child. If he did, he must later have had a revival of more hopeful ideas. He could write that couplet that has been so often repeated:
"God's in His heaven;
All's right with the world."
But all is not right with the world if millions and millions of our fellow creatures are in endless torment, and other millions on their way. I fear Browning's words are often repeated with a glib optimism. All is right with the world, or all will be right, when the whole race is redeemed from suffering and sin; not otherwise. But the love and power of God are equal to the task.
THE SWEEP OF THE INFINITE MIND.
I have sometimes on a sweet and hallowed night watched the moon riding so peacefully through the white clouds; and it did seem to me that if there is suffering anywhere, God has a time and a plan for relieving it. I could not think of Him as being happy otherwise. But if in the sweep of the infinite Mind he descries, even in some far off age, the entire passing away of sin and suffering, I can imagine Him as being perfectly happy. All events being equally present to Him, anticipation may be very much the same as reality.