Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/471

 7. When the hands are laid on, the Holy Ghost will enter.

Baptism, unction with chrism, repentance, communion sanctify man and sanctify him for ever, independently of the spiritual condition of the priest and of him who receives the sacrament; if only everything is in proper order, and there is no cause for cassation.

In these manipulations lies that means for salvation which God has invented. He who believes that he is sanctified and purified, and will receive eternal life, is actually sanctified and purified and will receive eternal life. All those who believe in that will receive their retribution, at first a private retribution, soon after death, and later a general one, after the end of the world. The private retribution will consist in this, that they will be glorified in heaven and on earth. On earth their relics and images will be honoured with incense and tapers, and in heaven they will be with Christ in glory. But before attaining that, they will pass through aerial spaces, where they will be stopped and questioned by angels and devils, who will contend with each other on their account, and those for whom the defence of the angels shall be stronger than the accusation of the devils will go to Paradise, and those whom the devils shall win will go to eternal torment, into hell.

The righteous, those who will go to Paradise, will there settle in various places, and those who shall be nearer to the Trinity may there, in heaven, pray for us to God, and so we must here worship their relics, their garments, and their images. These objects do miracles, and it is necessary to pray to God near these objects, and then the saints will intercede for us before God. The sinners, all the heretics, the unbaptized, the unbelievers, those who have. not received their communion, will go to hell, but they will be there in different places, according to the degree of their guilt, and there they will be to the end of the world.