"Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." "Oh, for those humble, contrite tears, "How oft in still communion known, And show it what they meant." Repentance implies genuine reformation. The Greek word is Metanoia, and literally denotes the soul's recollections of its own actions, in such a way, as to produce both sorrow and the purpose of amendment. about sixty times in the New Testament. The word occurs John, the precursor of the Nazarenean Spiritualist, preaching in the mountains and wildernesses of Syria, under the psychologic control and inspiration of Esaias-Isaiah-cried, "Repent ye;" that is, reform, for the kingdom of heavena more spiritual dispensation-is ripening for acceptance, destined to kindle into a richer, rapturous glow our national life. Repentance in no way indicates security from punishment; nor is it logically allied to any system that promises escape from the legitimate consequences attending the violations of natural law. Nature, though rigid, is a righteous master. Poised, she holds the golden scales of justice-obey and enjoy-transgress and suffer. Vicarious atonements, cradled in ignorance, belong originally to the lower social strata of Egyptian life, Jewish ceremonies and Christian superstitions—all mere devices to evade just penalties. Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, and other intuitive thinkers of the eldest ages, avoided introducing atoning substitutions into their religious instructions. Not from Jesus, but from the policy-inspired Pauline writings of the New Testament, do churchmen gather their dogmas of atonement and imputed righteousness. The soul keenly alive to justice a justice that would punish the guilty only-repudiates such popular church doctrines as these, expressed in verse: Just as I am and waiting not To rid my soul of one dark blot, To thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot, No crimson sacrifices of slain goats and kids, no sacred waters of Gunga, in India, no Grecian draughts of hemlock, nor streaming blood from Calvaries, can avail anything, even judicially, in saving from the consequences of those just penalties, threading Nature's laws, as cause and effect. The inebriate's repentance does not save him from the past shame, debility, degradation and torment, resulting from years of physical transgression. The poisoned libations daily consumed, impregnating every bone, muscle, sinew, nerve, deadening the finer emotions and benumbing the mind, leave their stings and scars upon the vital organism; while memory-the "undying worm "-lives to torture the mental with humiliation and remorse. These cannot be forgiven in the sense of blotting them into a forgetless oblivion. The universe knows no loss. But repentance in the sense of reformation, lifting the drunkard from the condition and further practice of the habit, will, by destroying the cause, save him from further disciplinary punishment. Effects, however, linger long after the operating causes have ceased to act, as rills continue to flow after the storm-clouds have settled away in the distance. While accepting repentance upon a philosophical basis, Spiritualism has no forgiveness in the sense of negating justice-none in the sense of warding off just and deserved punishment. The original Greek word for forgiveness is Aphiemi in the verbal, and Aphesis in the substantive form, literally implying "putting or sending away, removal, or deliverance from." It is sometimes translated by the English words (Luke iv: 18), "deliverance" and "liberty"— thus: "to preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bound." Punishment, repentance and forgiveness, are all clearly illustrated in the wanderings, sufferings and return to a father's embrace of the Prodigal Son. Repentance, implying sorrow and reformation, Jesus taught that there was "joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." This work continues in the future life. The republic of the angels spans all worlds. According to the "Apostles' creed," Jesus, "crucified, dead and buried, descended into hell"-the invisible state-the under-world of departed spirits. Speaking of this descent into hell, the celebrated Dr. Campbell confesses that "Jesus' descriptions of the abodes of departed souls, were not drawn from the writings of the Old Testament, but have a remarkable affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian poets have given of them." Enriched by the scholarship and companionship of the evangelist John, and conversant with the Indian, Egyptian and Grecian philosophies, this would be perfectly natural in Jesus' parabolic descriptions of the future existence. Admitting, as the "Apostles' creed" affirms-the descent into hell-what the purpose? That prominent disciple, Peter, answers: "Jesus put to death in the flesh, but quick ened by the spirit by which he also went and preached the spirits in prison, which were sometimes disobedient * * * in the days of Noah. For this cause also was the gospel preached to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” (1 Peter iii: 18, and iv: 6.) Beautiful this mission of Jesus preaching to the "dead"-preaching the gospel to darkened "spirits in prison." The fact of such preaching implies that those listening, could, and would, be benefited and permanently reformed by practically actualizing the divine teachings. Jesus' sermon on the mount was not his last. Reformers continue their redemptive efforts in the world of spirits. This is natural. Teaching and being taught is to be the work of eternity. That "cloud of witnesses," summering in the magnetic strata that envelope the earth in concentric circles, thus testify. Marked individualities, nationalities and conditions pertain to all lower realms of progressive life. "In my Father's house," said Jesus, "are many mansions." There are palatial homes for the angelic, and prison-houses for "prisoners of hope." These prison-spheres are the temporary residences of ignorant and angular spirits. Their psychological control is not to be courted. It produces disorder. The Apostles had power to cast out, or dispossess such. By their "fruits ye shall know them." Their emanations, rising like vapory flames, correspond to their moral states. To angel eyes these aural clouds appear dull, hazy, dark. Light from the celestial heavens streams in divine radiance all through these aromal stratifications. The divine Presence-the heavenly arabula— is everywhere manifest. Love encircles all. God and heaven triumph. Preceded, therefore, by repentance and reconciliation, holiness and happiness will be the certain destiny of a universe of conscious and reasoning intelligences. All will find this heaven-this paradise of bliss-when they are spiritually imparadised in God. CHAPTER XXXIII. LAW OF JUDGMENT. "Justice is a theorem; punishment is as exact as Euclid; crime has its angles of incidence, and its angles of reflection; and we men tremble when we perceive in the obscurity of human destiny the lines and figures of that enormous geometry which the dunce calls chance, and the thinking man Providence." "Richer for the storms and trials, Finer for the searching fire; Let each flame that scathes thy spirit Egyptian Judges, occupying official seats of honor, wore, as insignia, breast-plates of judgment. Jewish high-priests, copying after Egypt, put on the breast-plates, ephod, robe and girdle, adding to the breast-plate of judgment the Urim and Thummim. Christianity, modified by Buddhism and Hellenism, is grafted upon Judaism; hence the phrases judgment-seat and judgment. The literal import of the Greek term-Krisis-judgment, implies rule, government. As a scriptural doctrine, rightly interpreted, it has no refer a "future general judg to a re among the biblical -past time. |