t is a thought no less false than it is frightful, which
represents death as the vindictive turnkey of the creation, at
whose approach probation ends, and the shuddering convict is
thrust into hell, the hopeless bolt dropping into its ward behind
him. It is rather the divine messenger of deliverance for those
who are borne down here under a fate too hard for them. Oh, what
myriads of afflicted ones orphan children crushed by brutal
treatment; poor seamstresses starving in garrets; men and women
ground and grimed almost out of the semblance of humanity, in the
drudgery and darkness of coal mines; hapless suicides, who have
rashly fled from this step dame world, and whose alabaster forms,
purpled with bruises, are laid on the dismal beds of brass in the
morgue, where a ghastly light strains through the grates, and the
crowd of gazers sweeps endlessly on; unsuccessful men of genius,
unappreciated, neglected, cruelly wronged, their extreme
sensitiveness making their lives a long martyrdom to these what a
blessed angel is death, freeing them, setting them in a new state,
starting them on a fresh career, amidst fairer circumstances, in
front of better opportunities! To be saved, and in paradise, what
is it but to be a pure instrument to echo the music of divine
things? When the corruptible parts of the instrument are
hopelessly discordant, or the circumstances of its place here are
jangled with evils which it cannot overcome, then the
disentanglement of the spiritual harp, and the translation of it
to some finer sphere; where its free chords may ring their proper
music clearly out, are a blessed redemption, making death itself a
triumphant gate of heaven.

Retribution is the remotest and most difficult of all the heavenly
gates; and yet it is one, and one that is indispensable for many a
neglectful, halting, and obstinate child of man. It is an extreme
error to think punishment a gate of hell. It is rather a result of
being already inside, and it legitimately serves as an outlet
thence. Whatever may be the case with imperfect human rulers, in
the government of God no punishment is ever inflicted for the sake
of vengeance, a gratuitous evil. It is blasphemy to deem God
vindictive. He always punishes for the sake of good, to awaken
attention, produce insight and sorrow, and cause a reattunement of
character and conduct with the laws of right, seen at last to be
supremely authoritative and benignant, indissolubly bound up with