Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/98

 anguish who, scarce ten seconds before, were in the enjoyment of perfect health of spirit, soul and body? Never! What means the terrible weight of woe which suddenly leaps upon the soul of the sensitive? Whence comes this ocean of mental pain and half-sense of retribution, knowing themselves innocent and spotless of all wrong? I will answer. At that moment some one, somewhere, is undergoing all these pangs from apparent cause. The wave of pain has gone out, and, like the needle to the pole, flies directly to those whose position on the plane of the great sympathetic nerve of the universe fits them to receive it. Some one else receives it in turn; but it becomes less intense, degree after degree, until at last only a faint and tiny wave reaches the foot of the throne. "Eloi, Eloi, lamma Sabbacthani!" groaned the dying Christ; and the throes of his agony went pulsing through the universal human heart, till the most majestic prince of Seraphim quailed with agony. Even so, still, as in the days of yore, is operative the same great vicarious law. When the suffering soul turns itself to God, relief comes, but not an instant before. This latter law—for it is one—was well known in ancient times, and amongst the higher classes of the Orient is so still. It and its operation is well set forth by a modern poet of Islam:

"'Allah, Allah!' cried the sick man, racked with pain the long night through; Till with prayer his heart grew tender, till his lips like honey grew. But at morning came the Tempter; said, 'Call louder, child of Pain! See if Allah ever hears, or answers,  'Here am I,' again." Like a stab the cruel cavil through his brain and pulses went; To his heart an icy coldness, to his brain a darkness sent.