The Land of Darkness: Along with Some Further Chapters in the Experiences of the Little PilgrimOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
General
The Land of Darkness: Along with Some Further Chapters in the Experiences of the Little Pilgrim
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Future life -- Fiction; Purgatory -- Fiction
But time would not suffice to tell what these two pilgrims saw as they
wandered among the ways of men. They saw poverty and misery and pain,
which came of the evil which man had done upon the earth, and were his
punishment, and could be cured by nothing but by the return of each to
his Father, and the giving up of all self-worship and self-seeking and
sin. But amid all the confusion and among those who had fallen the
lowest they found not one who was forsaken, whose name the Father had
forgotten, or who was not made to pause in his appointed moment, and to
sit upon his throne and hear the pleadings before him of the great
advocates of God, reasoning of temperance and righteousness and judgment
to come.
But once before they returned to their home, a great thing befell them:
and they beheld that court sit, and the pleadings made, for the last
time upon earth, which was a sight more solemn and terrible than
anything they had yet seen. They found themselves in a chamber where sat
a man who had lived long and known both good and evil, and fulfilled
many great offices, so that he was famed and honoured among men. He was
a man who was wise in all the learning of the earth, standing but a
little way below those who have begun the higher learning in the world
beyond, and lifting up his head as if he would reach the stars. The
travellers stood by him in his beautiful house, which was as the palace
of wisdom, and saw him in the midst of all his honours. The lamps were
lit within, and the night was sweet without, breathing of rest and happy
ease, and riches and knowledge as if they would endure for ever. And the
man looked round on all he had, and all he had achieved, and everything
which he possessed, to enjoy it. For of wisdom and of glory he had his
fill, and his soul was yet strong to take pleasure in what was his, and
he looked around him like God, and said that everything was good--so
that the little Pilgrim gazed and wondered whether this could indeed be
one of the brethren of the earth, or if he was one who had wandered
hither from another sphere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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