rities," the laws
which speak ever to the consciousness of man, and whether they are
broken in ignorance or willfully set aside, the results are nearly the
same; the penalties exacted by beneficent justice are unalterable; only
in one case, there must finally be regrets for ignorance; in the other,
great remorse for wickedness and ill-doing. But these results are not
eternal, though the dreadfully cruel teachings of religion have made
people believe so. The faintest stirrings of desire to be better, the
least aspiration toward the higher life is sure of a response from
loving, compassionate beings in angelic ministrations.

The priests of different religions who have been most valiant and
positive in preaching hell fire and eternal damnation have entirely
lost sight of this fact. Not the most strenuous of the whole lot has
ever been able to follow one miserable wretch into the spirit world to
find out whether his prognostications anent his hypnotized victims,
have "come true." "_Au contraire_," great numbers of reputed sinners
have come back in their real personality to report to their friends
that there is no such fate for anyone, that it is one great lie. But
it must not be supposed that there are no sure enough hells. There
have to be places for the hellish to stay till they come of a better
mind. Nature provides for them other opportunities for their gradual
redemption through re-embodiments in the flesh on this earth. There is
besides a constant outpouring from the dark abodes of estrayed and
benighted souls, for the all-embracing love of our Father-Mother
reaches even the horribly suffering lunatics, made so by their selfish,
vicious lives here on earth. There is, indeed, the greatest possible
difference between an intended eternal punishment of sin, such as has
been preached for ages for the purpose of scaring people out of their
wits, and a recognized, just retribution for broken law. Punishments
such as have been believed in suggest a punisher, and our Father in
heaven has been blasphemously represented as "angry with the wicked
every day" and glad to have a chance to pour out his "bottles of wrath"
on their elected heads.

The torturing remorse of the slowly awakening consciousness of those
who have lived selfishly and viciously is far beyond the pains of the
burning, material fires. Every human being that has in it a living
germ of spirit shall be liberated and helped toward the light, not by
any