e present time!

"Whereupon he carried me to the gallery of one of the churches in
Wales, the people being in the midst of the service, and lo! some
were whispering, talking, and laughing, some were looking upon the
pretty women, others were examining the dress of their neighbours
from top to toe; some were pushing themselves forward and snarling at
one another about rank, some were dozing, others were busily engaged
in their devotions, but many of these were playing a hypocritical
part."

The angel finally conducts the Bard to the small cross street, that of
True Religion, where, of course, everything is widely different from what
is found in any of the other streets. In that street there was no fear
but of incensing the King, who was ever more ready to forgive than be
angry with his subjects, and no sound but that of psalms of praise to the
Almighty.

The second section is a Vision of Death in his palace below. The
author's aim in this vision is less apparent than in the preceding one.
Perhaps, however, he wished to impress upon people's minds the awfulness
of dying in an unrepentant state, from the certainty, in that event, of
the human soul being forthwith cast headlong down the precipice of
destruction. The Bard is carried away by sleep to chambers where some
people are crying, others screaming, some talking deliriously, some
uttering blasphemies in a feeble tone, others lying in great agony with
all the signs of dying men, and some yielding up the ghost after uttering
'a mighty shout.' He is then conducted to a kind of limbo or Hades,
where he meets with his prototype the Sleeping Bard of old and two other
Welsh poets, one of whom is Taliesin, who is represented as watching the
caldron of the witch Cridwen, even as he watched it in his boyhood. From
thence he is hurried to the palace of Death, where he sees the King of
Terrors swallowing flesh and blood, who, after a time, places himself on
a terrific throne, and proceeds to pass judgment on various prisoners
newly arrived. They are dealt with in an awful but very summary manner.
It is to be remarked that all the souls introduced in this vision are
those of bad people, with the exception of those of the poets which the
Bard meets in limbo. A dark intimation, however, is given that there is
another court or palace, where Death presides under a far different form,
and where he pronounces judgment over the souls of the good.