Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/247



"HEN the Spirit took me by the hand and said: 'Come back to Hades, and thou shalt descend to-night into hell.' And we flew though the air more swiftly than the birds. Then said I to the Spirit: 'I feel so strong, like to a young eagle; yet on earth I was ever weary and footsore. 'And he made answer: 'It was the body chained thee. When the spirit is delivered from the body, at that moment it feels lifted up and is capable of all things. The spirit is of God and therefore perfect. The will and the flesh belong to man, and war ever with the spirit. Thy thoughts now are pure, being by the body undefiled. Thou seest clearly with the eyes of the spirit; thou hearest keenly with the spirit's ear. Thine heart can love the Lord because it hath no fleshy taint, being wholly of the spirit. So it is that thou feelest perfect joy and rest, for thou hast no weariness of the flesh.'

" 'Then, if the spirit be of God,' I asked, 'whence are the evil spirits?' 'Ask me not,' said the Spirit of Truth. 'The Spirit of Evil and the flesh are one. At the Judgment Day all shall stand reunited to their fleshly bodies, as thou wilt shortly be; but the righteous join their mortal bodies but for the hour of the Judgment, and, when they enter