Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/198

 His hands, rather than life without Him! God only! I have chosen!" From the brightening heaven there rings a silver voice, clear as a clarion-call,—"Arise, Lucifer, Son of the Morning! One soul rejects thee,—one hour of joy is granted thee! Hence, and arise!" And with a vision of the man fiend rushing for a brief hour to celestial regions, because of one soul that rejected Satan, Geoffrey Tempest finds himself tied to a raft on the open sea, and remembers the promise, "Him who cometh unto me will I in no wise cast out."

The late Rev. H. R. Haweis, preaching on this book, said: "'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you,' is the grand moral carried out," and that is an opinion, notwithstanding the ban of the Romish Church, which is entertained of the book by many Christian men, by a large number of Christian clergy. It is a declaration of the Nemesis of everything that opposes itself to the will of God. The book teaches the softening influences upon mankind of good deeds done, of good words spoken. It teaches, in brief, that there are two contending powers at work upon mankind—the evil and the good; and the book is an eloquent, beautiful, effective contribution to the victory of the Good. The sensuality, the evil imagination, the