“Another equally prominent divine writes: ‘The happiness of the elect in heaven will in part consist in witnessing the torments of the damned in hell, and among them it may be their own children, parents, husbands, wives, and friends on earth. One part of the business of the blessed is to celebrate the doctrine of reprobation. While the decree of reprobation is eternally executing on the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their torment will be eternally ascending in view of the vessels of mercy, who, instead of taking the part of these miserable objects, will say amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord. When the saints shall see how great the misery is from which our God hath saved them, and how great a difference He hath made between their state and the state of others who, by nature and perhaps by practice, no more sinful and ill-deserving than they, it will give them more a sense of the wonderfulness of God’s grace to them. Every time they look upon the damned, it will excite in them a lively and admiring sense of the grace of God in making them so to differ. The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever.’ “I have candidly and truthfully given you, Mr. Japhet, my experience for what it may be worth to you, but my conclusions are all of life to me.” CHAPTER XXVI. Some business, as well as a desire for a change in the monotony of station life, took me to Calcutta. I was the guest of a well-to-do Eurasian family whom I had met. This gentleman, by inheriting some property and by profitable investments, was able to live quite independent and very comfortably. The family, on account of its wealth, was on the verge of society, sometimes inside, but oftener on the outside. “Society” has always been a puzzle to me. I can understand the Hindu caste system, for that is something well defined and natural. All the castes accept the position in which they are born. One caste is as proud of its place as another, and there is no trying to pass from one caste to another. There are strict rules for each, settled by immutable laws and recognized by government, even among the criminals in the jails. Everything is definite and satisfactory to everybody. As an instance, among Hindu fishermen there are these castes: those who fish from the rocks, those who fish from boats, those who catch turtle, those who cast nets, and those who fish with a rod. There is no chance here for mistakes, as each one knows where he is; but among Europeans everything is higgledy-piggledy, no one knows who’s who or what’s what. It is a sarcasm on western civilization to allow the heathen to be so far ahead in such an important matter.