st understand that while some may be baptized with
water to cleanliness and repentance, others are baptized with living
fire to everlasting life, and that they alone are the children of God?"_

_Then again I read these words:_

_"Woe to thee, thou who deniest the laws of God and man! Woe to thee,
thou who walkest in the darkness of the shadow of sin and evil! But ten
thousand times woe to thee, thou who pilest Pelion of self-good upon
Ossa of self-truth, not that thou mayst scale therefrom the gate of
Heaven, but that thou mayst hide thyself beneath from the eye of the
Living God! By-and-by His Day shall come! His Terrible Lightning shall
flash from the East to the West! His Dreadful Flaming Thunder-bolt shall
fall, riving thy secret fastnesses to atoms, and leaving thee, poor
worm, writhing in the dazzling effulgence of His Light, and shrivelling
beneath the consuming flame of His Loving-kindness!"_

_Then the leaf was turned, and there before me lay the answer to that
first question, "What shall a man do that he may gain the kingdom of
Heaven?" There stood the words, plain and clear. But I did not dare to
read them, but turning, left that place, shutting the door to behind
me._

_Never have I found that door or entered that room again, but by-and-by
I know that I shall find them both once more, and shall then and there
read the answer that forever stands written in that book, for it still
lies open at the very page, and he upon whose knees it rests is
Israfeel, the Angel of Death._

* * * * *

But what of the sequel? Is there a sequel? Are we, then, to suffer
ourselves to do evil for the sake of shunning pain in the other world? I
trow not! He who sets his foot to climb must never look backward and
downward. He who suffers most must reach the highest. There must be
another part of the story which lies darkly and dimly behind the letter.
One can see, faintly and dimly but nevertheless clearly, what the poor
man was to enjoy--the poor man who from without appeared to be so evil,
and yet within was not really evil. One can see a vision faint and dim
of a simple little house cooled by the dewy shade of green trees forever
in foliage; one can see pleasant meadows and gardens forever green,
stretching away to the banks of a smooth-flowing river in whose level
bosom rests a mirrored image of that which lies beyond its farther
bank--a great town with glistering walls and gleaming spires re