192 THE UNIVERSE 



He says further : " There has never been a human 

 being yet since time began, however beautiful, gifted, 

 bright with genius, or radiant with fascination, who 

 has sinned with impunity." Evil and punishment, 

 as Plato said, walk this world with their heads tied 

 together, and the rivet that links their iron link is 

 of adamant. It needs no lightning stroke, or di- 

 vine interposition, no miraculous message to avenge 

 God's violated laws. They avenge themselves. The 

 hell fire of the Bible was a spiritual fire which does 

 not burn the flesh, but purifies the spirit. Not a 

 material fire, but self-kindled fire, an internal fever 

 in fact, remorse for remembered sins a figurative 

 representation of a moral process by which resto- 

 ration shall be effected. 



When earthly life vanishes and we see in the visions 

 of the soul an endless life and being in countless 

 worlds of destiny, death has no terrors. The 

 thought of the pale, cold body enwrapt in its wind- 

 ing sheet, coffined and alone in the narrow grave, 

 its last sad dwelling place, with the grass growing 

 above, where the lonely cricket chirps through the 

 silent night, does not disturb the calm and reason- 

 ing soul. A few years hence and we shall all cross 

 the dark river to the shadowy unknown shore and 

 learn the mysteries that lie beyond. But where is 

 that wondrous shore, and where will all of the now 

 living inhabitants of earth be a century hence? 

 Not floating in the marvelous belt of atmosphere 

 which surrounds the earth. Nor on a changeful 

 planet like our earth. Not floating in the frigid ether 

 of space, but, if my hypothesis is correct, they will be 

 celestial residents in the self-luminous, all-life-giving 

 sun. 



