while they live,
and when they die they wake." The sudden infliction of pain in the
future state comes from the sudden unveiling of secrets,
quickening of the moral consciousness, and exposure of the naked
soul's fitnesses to the spiritual correspondences of its deserts.
It is said, "Death does Away disguise: souls see each other
clear, At one glance, as two drops of rain in air Might look into
each other had they life."

The quality of the soul's character decides the elements of the
soul's life; and, as this becomes known on crossing the death
drawn line of futurity, conscious retribution then arises in the
guilty. This is a retribution which is reasonable, moral,
unavoidable, before which we may well pause and tremble. The great
moral of it is that we should not so much dread being thrust into
an eternal hell as we should fear carrying a hell with us when we
go into eternity. It is not so bad to be in hell as to be forced
truly to say, "Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell."

If these general ideas are correct, it follows even as all common
sense and reflection affirm that every real preparation for death
and for what is to succeed must be an ingrained characteristic,
and cannot consist in a mere opinion, mood, or act. Here we strike
at one of the shallowest errors, one of the most extensive and
rooted superstitions, of the world. Throughout the immense
kingdoms of the East, where the Brahmanic and Buddhist religions
hold sway over six hundred millions of men, the notion of
yadasanna that is, the merit instantaneously obtained when at the
point of death fully prevails. They suppose that in that moment,
regardless of their former lives and of their present characters,
by bringing the mind and the heart into certain momentary states
of thought and feeling, and meditating on certain objects or
repeating certain sacred words, they can suddenly obtain exemption
from punishment in their next life.11 The notion likewise obtains
almost universally among Christians, incredible as it may seem.
With the Romanists, who are three fourths of the Christian world,
it is a most prominent doctrine, everywhere vehemently proclaimed
and acted on: that is the meaning of the sacrament of extreme
unction, whereby, on submission to the Church and confession to a
priest, the venal sins of the dying man are forgiven, purgatory
avoided or lessened, and heaven made sure. The ghost of the King
of Denmark complains most of the unwarned s