Page:The Other Life.djvu/260

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flaming scroll at the judgment; for it cannot be supposed that the heaven of angels, the home of the blessed, the throne of God can ever be shaken or destroyed.

Vast multitudes of men under all these dispensations were so good that they passed readily into heaven; and vast multitudes were so evil that they threw themselves speedily into hell, under the special judgment or process of separation already described. The residue constituted a mighty power of evil and falsity, resting like a vast incubus upon the minds of men on earth and reacting with disturbing aggressiveness against the bright and loving forces of heaven. When this state reached its climax, when the fullness of time was come, there was a visitation of Divine Truth, and a terrible judgment accomplished by the angels.

These judgments in the world of spirits were no doubt attended by the striking and awful phenomena described by the prophets; for the symbols employed in Scripture are the veritable forms and realities of the spiritual world. The heavens fled away; the sea disappeared; the sun was darkened; their apparently external nature was convulsed; there was fire, and blood and smoke; cities were overwhelmed; the earth yawned; and the rocks and