Was it fair that his last days
should be so peaceful and luxurious, when many a good man falls down to
die in the streets, worn out with the life-long effort to bear the burden
laid upon his weary shoulders? In the traditions of the Rabbins it is
written that those are the elect of God who suffer His chastisement in
the flesh. For the others, for those who on earth drain the goblet of
pleasure, and riot in the raptures of sin, for them comes the dread
retribution after death. They are plunged in the fire, and driven before
the wind; they take the shape of loathsome reptiles, and ascend by
infinitesimal degrees through all the grades of creation, until their
storm-tost wearied degraded souls re-enter human semblance once more. But
even then their old stand-point is not yet regained; their dread penance
not yet performed. As men they are the lowest and worst of men; slaves
toiling in the desert; dirt to be trampled under the feet of their
prosperous brethren. Inch by inch the wretched soul regains its lost
inheritance; cycles must elapse before the awful sentence is fulfilled.
Our Christian faith knows no such horrors. Even for the penitent of the
eleventh hour there is promise of pardon. The most earnest desire of
Diana's heart was that her father should enroll himself amongst those
late penitents--those last among the last who crowd in to the marriage
feast, half afraid to show their shame-darkened faces in that glorious
company.
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