egret, which admits of no repentance.

"One of the privileges of our sojourn here is that we have a strange and
beautiful device--a window, I will call it--which admits one to a sight
of the spiritual world. I was to-day contemplating, not without pain,
but with absolute confidence in its justice, the sufferings of some of
these lost souls, and I observed, I cannot say with satisfaction, but
with complete submission, the form of my friend, whom my testimony might
have saved, in eternal misery. I have the tenderest heart of any man
alive. It has cost me a sore struggle to subdue it--it is more unruly
even than the will--but you may imagine that it is a matter of deep and
comforting assurance to reflect that on earth the door, the one door, to
salvation is clearly and plainly indicated--though few there be that
find it--and that this signal mercy has been vouchsafed to me. I have
then the peace of knowing, not only that my choice was right, but that
all those to whom the truth is revealed have the power to choose it. I
am a firm believer in the uncovenanted mercies vouchsafed to those who
have not had the advantages of clear presentment, but for the
deliberately unfaithful, for all sinners against light, the sentence is
inflexible."

He closed his eyes, and a smile played over his features.

I found it very difficult to say anything in answer to this monologue;
but I asked my companion whether he did not think that some clearer
revelation might be made, after the bodily death, to those who for some
human frailty were unable to receive it.

"An intelligent question," said my companion, "but I am obliged to
answer in the negative. Of course the case is different for those who
have accepted the truth loyally, even if their record is stained by the
foulest and most detestable of crimes. It is the moral and intellectual
adhesion that matters; that once secured, conduct is comparatively
unimportant, if the soul duly recurs to the medicine of penitence and
contrition so mercifully provided. I have the utmost indulgence for
every form of human frailty. I may say that I never shrank from contact
with the grossest and vilest forms of continuous wrong-doing, so long as
I was assured that the true doctrines were unhesitatingly and
submissively accepted. A soul which admits the supremacy of authority
can go astray like a sheep that is lost, but as long as it recognises
its fold and the authority of the divine law, it can be sought