Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/315

 To the other two systems, again, there was a different and even still more striking nightly spectacle. Let us take, for example, the case of the Greens. I may be supposed to have a bias that way, if there be anything in a name. After their own genially-hued, and, to the Green mind, perfect-light sun had set, a night scene at once beautiful and terrible succeeded the day. On one side arose the pale blue star, of all-surpassing beauty and brightness. On the other, a fiery red monster, which glared down out of heaven, conspicuously still greater in dimensions and powder than even the other grand object, and which, but for the reconciling effect of habit, must have caused intolerable terror to all beneath its rays. The great, benign blue star was, of course, heaven, and the fierce and still greater red was hell; and much religious capital, and countless conversions, were made of such powerful religious accessories. When full mutual explanations had been come to, upon all parties advancing in science and finally entering the higher life, there remained, to the Reds in particular, the ungracious fact that their sun, much to their surprise, if not to a stronger and sharper feeling, had been regarded as the common hell of each of the other systems.

In Green religion, as I have said, much was made of this terrible red star, which was usually brought in, by way of climax, in the sensational section of Green preaching. It was thus common, with this section, to regulate church hours by the time of night when the red star would be best placed for commanding effect; and thus there had arisen quite a system of management of this effect. The well