"
He closed his eyes, and a smile played over his features.
I found it very difficult to say anything in answer to this monologue;
but I asked my companion whether he did not think that some clearer
revelation might be made, after the bodily death, to those who for some
human frailty were unable to receive it.
"An intelligent question," said my companion, "but I am obliged to
answer in the negative. Of course the case is different for those who
have accepted the truth loyally, even if their record is stained by the
foulest and most detestable of crimes. It is the moral and intellectual
adhesion that matters; that once secured, conduct is comparatively
unimportant, if the soul duly recurs to the medicine of penitence and
contrition so mercifully provided. I have the utmost indulgence for
every form of human frailty. I may say that I never shrank from contact
with the grossest and vilest forms of continuous wrong-doing, so long as
I was assured that the true doctrines were unhesitatingly and
submissively accepted. A soul which admits the supremacy of authority
can go astray like a sheep that is lost, but as long as it recognises
its fold and the authority of the divine law, it can be sought and
found.
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