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380 change; and so the past, though no part of it can be recalled, is perpetually being re-created and transformed, now for the worse, now for the better, as its whole goes on unfolding. But the whole, it is within the compass of our freedom to bring into fuller and fuller harmony with our active vision of our Ideal, in which at source the freedom consists.

This is the life of the responsible universe, the World of Souls: its freedom is only existent in terms of GOD, who, despite the Inexorable Finger, hears in eternity the sigh of the penitent, and accords to him eternally an indwelling fountain of salvation, from “before the foundation of the world.” Thus does He “still the cry of the afflicted”; thus age by age, to ages everlasting, “wipe away all tears,” and grant to each sinning and sorrowing spirit the bliss of repentance consciously free, a redemption that arises out of the soul itself, the merit of virtue that is its own, and a peace that is indeed WITHIN.