An old message
The Restitution of all things is not a new idea.
The following are a few of the ladies in the past few hundred years who have grasped the Hope of all hope.
Sharon Baker
https://www.nomadpodcast.co.uk/nomad...d-razing-hell/
Madeleine L'Engle
L'Engle was Episcopalian and believed in Christian universalism, which insisted that everyone will ultimately be saved by God. She meditated on religious issues in such books as And It Was Good: Reflections on Beginnings (1983). L'Engle also worked at St. John the Divine in New York City as a librarian and writer-in-residence for more than three decades.
Anne Bronte
One of the three famous Bronte sisters, Anne is remembered for being the most pious. Before she died from tuberculosis at the tender age of 29, Anne admitted to a faith in universalism, as the following poem and letter testify.
A Word to The 'Elect'
You may rejoice to think yourselves secure;
You may be grateful for the gift divine -
That grace unsought, which made your black hearts pure,
And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven to shine.
But, is it sweet to look around, and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness
Which they deserved, at least, as much as you, -
Their faults not greater, nor their virtues less?
And, wherefore should you love your God the more,
Because to you alone his smiles are given;
Because he chose to pass the many o'er,
And only bring the favoured few to Heaven?
And, wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove,
Because for ALL the Saviour did not die?
Is yours the God of justice and of love?
And are your bosoms warm with charity?
Say, does your heart expand to all mankind?
And, would you ever to your neighbor do -
The weak, the strong, the enlightened, and the blind -
As you would have your neighbor do to you?
And, when you, looking on your fellow-men,
Behold them doomed to endless misery,
How can you talk of joy and rapture then? -
May God withhold such cruel joy from me!
That none deserve eternal bliss I know;
Unmerited the grace in mercy given:
But, none shall sink to everlasting woe,
That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven.
And, oh! there lives within my heart
A hope, long nursed by me;
(And, should its cheering ray depart,
How dark my soul would be!)
That as in Adam all have died,
In Christ shall all men live;
And ever round his throne abide,
Eternal praise to give.
That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies;
And, when their dreadful doom is past,
To life and light arise.
I ask not, how remote the day,
Nor what the sinners' woe,
Before their dross is purged away;
Enough for me, to know
That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They'll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.
--Anne Bronte (1843)
Florence Nightingdale
Nightingale was a Christian universalist.
On 7 February 1837 – not long before her 17th birthday – something happened that would change her life: "God spoke to me", she wrote, "and called me to His service."
Hannah W. Smith
The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It (the missing chapters)
"Nothing can separate you from His love, absolutely nothing, neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature... We do not need to beg Him to bless us, He simply cannot help it. Therefore God is enough! God is enough for time, God is enough for eternity. God is enough!" -Hannah Whitall Smith-
Clara Barton (Founder Red Cross)
Although not formally a member of the Universalist Church of America in a 1905 letter to the widow of Carl Norman Thrasher, she identified herself with her parents' church as a "Universalist".
My dear friend and sister:
Your belief that I am a Universalist is as correct as your greater belief that you are one yourself, a belief in which all who are privileged to possess it rejoice. In my case, it was a great gift, like St. Paul, I "was born free", and saved the pain of reaching it through years of struggle and doubt.
My father was a leader in the building of the church in which Hosea Ballow preached his first dedication sermon. Your historic records will show that the old Huguenot town of Oxford, Mass. erected one of, if not the first Universalist Church in America. In this town I was born; in this church I was reared. In all its reconstructions and remodelings I have taken a part, and I look anxiously for a time in the near future when the busy world will let me once more become a living part of its people, praising God for the advance in the liberal faith of the religions of the world today, so largely due to the teachings of this belief.
Give, I pray you, dear sister, my warmest congratulations to the members of your society. My best wishes for the success of your annual meeting, and accept my thanks most sincerely for having written me.
Fraternally yours, (Signed) Clara Barton.
