The gates of death open. You pass them. They close behind you. And what
then?--The whole hierarchy of heaven, the whole company of your
forerunners thither--beloved and honoured on earth--may be gathered to
hail the homing soul within those amazing portals; or it may drop, as a
stone into a well, down the blank nothingness of the abyss.--Of all
gambles invented by God, man or devil--so he told himself--this daily,
hourly gamble of individual dissolution is the biggest. Man's heart
refuses the horror of extinction, while his intellect holds the question
in suspense. We hope. We believe. From of old fair promises have been
made us; and, granted the gift of faith, hope and belief neighbour upon
assurance. But certainty is denied. No mortal, still clothed in flesh,
has known, nor--the accumulated science of the ages notwithstanding--does
know, actually and exactly, that which awaits it.
Thus, anyhow, in the still, tender brightness of the autumn morning,
while Nature and men alike pursued their normal activities and
occupations, did this singular matter appear to Charles Verity--he,
himself, arbitrarily cut off from all such activities and occupations
in the very moment of high fruition.
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