perfection: the joys enjoyed by the Archangel would _destroy_ a lesser angel: the degree of joy that invigorates the saint, that sends him into rhapsodies of happiness, would _destroy_ the sinner--(becoming insupportable agony to the sinner). This celestial joy is, fundamentally, a question of the enduring of some un-nameable energy. How can energy be a means of this immeasurable Divine joy? After years of experience I find I cannot go back upon the knowledge that I acquired on the very first occasion of experience--that energy _is a fundamental principle of the mystery._ But how, it may very well be asked, do sins interfere with the reception of this activity? Sins are all imperfections, thickenings of the soul from self-will: pure soul is necessary for the _happy_ reception of this celestial activity, and because impurities are automatically dissipated by this activity, and the dissipation or dispersion of them _is the most awful agony conceivable_ when too suddenly done, what is bliss to the saint is the extremity of torture to the sinner. Now we come very fearfully and dreadfully to understand something more of the meanings, the happenings, of the Judgment Day. Christ will inflict no direct wilful punishment on any soul; but when He presents Himself before all souls and they behold His Face, immediately they will receive the terrible might of the activity of celestial joy. The regenerated will endure and rejoice; the unrepentant sinner will agonise, and he must flee from before the Face of Christ, because the agony that he feels is the dispersal of his imperfect soul; and where shall the sinner flee, where shall he go to find happiness? for saint and sinner alike desire happiness, and there is in Spirit-life only one happiness--the Bliss of God. So then let us be careful to prepare ourselves to be able to receive and endure this happiness, even if it can at first be only in a small degree, so that we shall not be condemned _by our own pain_ to leave the Presence of God altogether and consequently lose Celestial Pleasures; let us at least prepare ourselves to remain near enough to know something of this tremendous living. It was this Divine Activity which on the night of the Too Great Happiness so anguished my imperfect soul. But that night, and that anguish, taught my soul what she could never have learnt by any other means, and what it was I learnt I find myself unable to pass on to anyone; but that night was for my soul the turning-point of her destiny, that night altered my soul for evermore; that night I knew God as deeply as He can be known whilst the soul is in flesh. * * *