Again, the vanishing vision leaves the man what he
was before, still capable it may be of committing the crime from
which he is not altogether clean to whom in his sleep it was
possible: repentance makes of the man a new creature, one who has
awaked from the sleep of sin to sleep that sleep no more. The change
in the one case is not for greatness comparable with that in the
other. The sun that awakes from the one sleep, is but the outward
sun of our earthly life--a glorious indeed and lovely thing, which
yet even now is gathering a crust of darkness, blotting itself out
and vanishing: the sun that awakes a man from the sleep of death is
the living Sun that casts from his thought out into being that other
sun, with the space wherein it holds planetary court--the Father of
lights, before whose shining in the inner world of truth eternal,
even the deeds of vice become as spectral dreams, and, with the
night of godlessness that engendered them, flee away.
"But a man may answer and say to me--'Thou art but borne on the
wings of thine imagination. The fact of the crime remains, let a man
tear out his heart in repentance, and no awaking can restore an
innocence which is indeed lost.' I answer: The words thou speakest
are in themselves true, yet thy ignorance makes them false, Thou
knowest not the power of God, nor what resurrection from the dead
means.
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