"The Apostle John says that 'God is light.' By this I understand him to mean that God is infinitely wise, knowing all truth. The same apostle says that 'God is love.' By this I understand that the Lord God has a will for good to every creature that he has made. That he has no other feeling than that of love for the human race and for every individual of the human family. Now, it was in the image and likeness of God that man was made at his first creation. Is it not plain from this, then, that he must have been wise in regard to the things of his understanding, and filled with love in his heart for all that is truly good? In this state he could love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his strength, and love his neighbor as he loved himself. But what does the Bible, and what does the history of the world tell us about man ever since he fell from this heavenly state in which he was first created? The Bible declares that the 'heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.' The Lord said to the Pharisees, a class of people who even claimed to be religious: 'Ye are of your father the devil; and the works of your father ye do.' From the Bible we turn to the history of man's career through all the ages down to the present time, and we find its lines all written in characters of blood. Revenge, murder, cruelty, deceit, malice and ill-will of one toward another are manifest on almost every page of history.
"But in the very face of all this evil God still loved the world; and he so loved it that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And I declare him to you to-day as my Savior and your Savior; able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God through him. And what does he save us from? He saves us from hell. And what is hell? I say to you that it is the place where the devil, and all his angels and evil spirits of men live after they leave this world. It is the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. It is the everlasting fire into which the accursed depart. It is the place from which the rich man lifted up his eyes, tormented, as he himself confessed, sorely tormented in this flame. But, dear friends, God does not will that any of us should go to hell; for he says: 'As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but would that all should turn and live.'