Stay thou! O! leave me not, In His Eternity, Until my soul is wrapped In His Infinity! When I saw her, her eyes and her face seemed already to wear a look of sanctity. She was quickly winning the battle. Bearing her cross she had almost reached her Golgotha. Then would be her ascension. She had suffered much; and I heard good Benedictus say to her so sweetly: "Yet a little while and thou shalt be blest much, my daughter!" And then he turned to me and said: "Oh! these crushed virgins of earth! So sinned against, and so ensnared by cruel fate of circumstances? So entrapped by man's vicious wiles! So driven to sin by the dogs of want, oppression, extortion and seduction! They shall yet be God's pure doves, and, nestling in His shielding bosom, no turbulent storms shall drive them hither and thither any more!" * * * * I saw, further down, in a darkened shadow, a hideous creature (he was but a type of thousands I saw there) snarling and biting and striking into the surrounding ether, as though piercing it with a dagger. He was cursing, and his rage was violent. He had been a murderer of his fellow-man. Here he was murdering his haunting phantoms! He was trying to assassinate the grim fancies of his own outraged conscience. Now and then he threw himself fearfully forward, as if in a death struggle. Then he would crawl, and sneak with stealthy step, as though creeping upon an adversary. His eyes gleamed darkly—they did not look out upon you—they glared. His face and countenance wore a grimace of rage. No one ever approached him, except the "celestial TruthBearers," who communicated to him so gently of God and of the purified life of the pure and meek in heart. After they would leave him, he would pine away, and moan most piteously, prostrating his being prone upon the sphere beneath him. Then he would hastily rise, and look wildly and searchingly about him; then he would rush swiftly away shrieking, as if flying from a thousand haunting phantoms. His whole being seemed constantly to writhe in contortions of agony. I saw him kneel once, and look up to God, and then despair appeared to seize him, and to hurl him down. He then uttered such shrieks of woe and penitence, that I could not bear to behold his sin-inflicted torture. I turned away, for my soul could endure it no longer; I saw thousands like unto him. Bloody-conscienced kings and cardinals and priests—cruel monarchs and heartless rulers -who spared not human lives nor human hearts-O! the ragings and the groanings and the heavings of their volcanic consciences ! They had spared not and they were not spared. They had heeded not the groans and tears of others, and theirs seemed as yet to be of no avail. Neither crowns, nor scepters, nor phylacteried robes, nor regalia, nor standing armies, nor vast earthly kingdoms, were of any avail to them here. The terrible cross was laid upon each expiating soul, and there was no Simon of Cyrene to bear it for them to its Golgotha. And thus all through Plutone's realm I saw each grade and type of sin and its attending woes. Poor souls everywhere garnering their tares! Some of them had vast harvests to garner. ever come the end of their travailing autumn? When would Others had but few sheaves to garner. Their deliverance was near. There were some souls that seemed already to behold the mount of their transfiguration. They were passing up through great tribulations. The flail had been laid upon them, and they were being purified. * AFTER IMPRESSIONS. Yet do not suppose that in Plutone there were no forms of pleasure. There were pleasures of evil, as on earth, but here their sweetness turned more quickly to bitter poison. Disgusting staleness and nausea followed fast in the track of evil satiety. Revelry and debauch in sin, wildly intoxicating while they lasted, succumbed speedily to the terrible retributions of conscience. The powers of good in these souls were merciless in their chastisements. Conscience was here a task-master that laid on many stripes. The forces of reformation in these souls offered no flag of truce to the powers of evil. Here was being waged the and evil in God's universe. decisive battle between good Each soul was a battlefield, and within it were the contending forces. Concerning the wager of this battle, wise Ariel said to me: "As sure as the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, good shall triumph over evil everywhere. If this be not so, the evil tendency of the soul is mightier than God and good conjoined." Yes, there were pleasures in Plutone. There were revelries and mirth-making. There was the merry spring-time sowing, and there was the scorching harvest of woe. But there was this difference, the groaning harvest was miserably greater than the spring-time sowing. Plutone reminded me of a vast school, an austere curriculum of discipline, or a prison for reformation. In this school there were severe masters. The lessons to be learned, the tasks to be accomplished, were arduous, but sooner or later each soul had to master its curriculum, and perform its meted tasks. Conscience was the stern keeper always relentless. The "Celestial Truth-Bearers" and the all-pervading spirit of God were the beneficent teachers--re-enforced by each soul's experience -illuminating each soul, sealing home to each, by the Father's love, every good impulse and aspiration. What I beheld of this winnowing discipline reminded me of the thoughts expressed in the following lines with which I had been familiar on earth : "For till the bruising flails of God's corrections To thresh the husk of this our flesh away, CHAPTER XXVII. THE GREAT LESSON IN LIFE-ASSURANCE'S FINAL EXPERIENCES -RISTOS' FAll. As soon as the discourse of good Benedictus was over, Clareese and I greeted wise Ariel, and he presented us to Benedictus. I told Benedictus that, from his celestial name, and judging by the blessed trend of his activities still pursued in the celestial spheres, he must be one, who, by the earthly name I knew so well, had carried on such labors there. He replied that he was honored by God to be the one to whom I had reference; and that he gloried unspeakably in these activities in which he was here engaged, which were always so fresh, exhilarating and blest. Such had been his holy toil on earth; it was his triumphant glory here! And he added these gloriously hopeful words: "For here God blesseth my labors among these erring ones much more abundantly than on earth! And what joys celestial when a soul is here disenthralled from the powers and forces of evil within it, and becometh radiant in the dominion of Good. "All these powers, forces and forms of evil and sin shall become subject to that supreme Good, which was personified in him who brought light into the world of earth and in whose Life shines forth that living reality of perfect life!" I said: "Dear brother, is God able, is the power of Good operating in each individual soul sufficient, to overcome the sinful domination swaying, writhing, and maddening, in those poor, perverted souls down there?" "Yea, Assurance, for God is infinite in love and blessedness as He is in power. The power of Good is as limitless as the infinity of God's love. 66 Το say that God cannot, through and by the individual principle of good in the soul, save, elevate, and perfect them, is to limit His power; to say that by these means He will not, is to limit His love. "To affirm either is to commit presumptuous sin. "This self-suffering, this self-inflicted chastisement and expiation, which you behold these souls undergoing, is the discipline which will finally subjugate the powers of evil, inflict the penalty of sin, and establish the dominion of Good in each soul." |