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the Christ shall sit in judgment, and shall condemn the sinner to an everlasting hell; though there be none
of this, yet that every act is registered, every thought recorded, every habit known as a factor in the
future character. We would show you that the judgment of condemnation need no paraphernalia of
assize, but is conducted in the silent recesses of the soul itself. No judge is there but the voice of Spirit
communing with itself, and reading its own doom. No books but the records of conscience; no hell but
the flame of remorse that shall eat into the soul and purge it as by fire.
And this, not in a far-off future when the arisen myriads of humanity shall all have been gathered up, but
instant on death, quick as consciousness awakes, sure as the soul stirs in the new life. This too, not
subject to a faint perhaps, in a dim and hazy light seen far off down the vista of the future, but sure and
certain, instant and inevitable. We would teach you this. For it has been said of us that our Gospel
removes the terror from religion, by which motive alone the most of men may be governed and
restrained, and substitutes for it a faith which teaches salvation for all, whatever their deeds may be,
whatever creed they may profess. We do not teach any such insensate creed. You know it; but you
need to have repeated again and again the truth on which we have beein insisting: Man makes his own
future, stamps his own character, suffers for his own sins, and must work out his own salvation.
We did but dwell on this side because the story of that wasted life invited by its example. We have dwelt
often enough on the lighter side of grace and beauty and angelic ministration. You need not to be told of
the abounding mercy and love of the Supreme, nor of the tender watchful care which is ceaselessly
exercised by those who minister between Him and you. It is well sometimes to show the dark side of
loneliness and desolation, and temptation by the foes.
The ideal was not high: and if it were, high ideals serve only to brace the aspiring soul: they are too high
for those only who have no ambition to ascend: not for those whose lives have not been eaten out by
selfishness and sin, whose energies are yet strong, and will grow stronger by the exercise of them. Be
assured, good friend, that the grand truth can never be escaped. Life is a journey, a conflict, a
development. The journey is up-hill, and the way is thorn-beset and difficult. The conflict is unending till
victory crowns the final effort. The development is spiritual from a lower to a higher plane, from the child
of earth to the measure of the stature of the Christ. You cannot change the unalterable. You cannot
reach the Perfect Good, save after a conflict with evil. It is an eternal necessity that you be purified
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SECTION XXXI
through struggles with the evil that surrounds you. It is the means by which the spark once struck off
from the Divine Soul wins back its way to Him and enters into its rest.
Do you need to be told that true happiness is to be had only by living up to the highest ideal? That the
idler and the sluggard know it not? That the vicious man and the evil-doer, who sins of choice and by
preference, have no part in it? That peace on earth springs up only in the soul that soars heavenwards,
and finds its happiness in viewing the dangers and difficulties that have been overpassed? Do you need
to be told again that the angels watch over such to bear them up that the ministers count it honour to
support them, and that no final harm can fasten on the spirit which keeps a high ideal before it? Victory is
assured: but it would not be victory were it found without a struggle in selfish and inglorious ease, by
those who would not value what every idle hand might pluck. Victory comes after conflict: peace after
tribulation: development after steady growth.
I replied that this seemed to me matter of course; and that in the seed-time of life man must get
as much knowledge, do as much work, and enjoy such peace as he can. But the work and the
knowledge (especially of God Himself and His future) must precede Peace, or Rest. Perhaps too
little room was left for meditation.
No; the life is threefold: of meditation and prayer; of worship and adoration; and of conflict with the
threefold enemy. The meditation is necessary to self-knowledge. It is an element of steady growth. With
it goes prayer, the communion of the prisoned soul with the Father of spirits, and with us His ministers.
Worship and adoration, in any of the countless phases that the soul seeks out for itself, whether in silent
solitude beneath the heavens that speak to him of his God, or in communion with Nature, the external
and material manifestation of Deity, or in the solemn service of song within some stately temple which
man has separated for God: or in the upward aspiration of the heart unuttered and unheard of man in
any or all of these ways the instinct of adoration divinely implanted may find its vent. These are the
necessary helps for the sustained conflict. We do not undervalue them: rather do we insist on them. We
tell you that it would be well if you devoted more time to peaceful thought. Your life lacks quietness.
As to the accountability of this spirit for its rash act, surely you admit some cases where the spirit
is not accountable.
Assuredly. The human instrument may be jarred and out of tune, and so may faultily transmit the will of
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