Page:The Other Life.djvu/230

 and turned in faith and love toward God, hell and its wretchedness would disappear. The life and laws and forms of heaven would become objective there and it would be another heaven. Why does God not accomplish this? Because He cannot. He cannot forcibly change or compel the will, the life, the love, the selfhood of man or spirit. That would be to destroy his free-agency, his identity, his individuality. At the moment of his creation, of his differentiation from God, man acquires this free-agency, this spiritual impenetrability, and it can never be taken from him.

Why, then, does God not withdraw his sustaining life from the hells and let them perish?

Because He cannot. He cannot change, for that would be to cease to be God. He cannot lie; He cannot violate the laws of His own being; He cannot defraud; He Cannot commit an act of folly; He cannot cease to love nor to create. The life, the breath, the power which flow from Him through the universe are one. He cannot divide them, giving a little here and a little there, infusing or withdrawing as He may choose. He gives all to all; the difference in result is not due to partiality of influx, but to differences of reception. He cannot withhold life from one sphere and give it to an-