"The Fullness of the Gospel and the Eternal Punishments", by E.J.Ekman (1903) (Part 17)
It is given, both in the world of nature and in the world of the spirit, laws established by God, in accordance with which the physical and spiritual development takes place. Nothing happens by chance, nothing either evil or good, that a man does, perishes, but everything carries with it its specific fruits and effects. Everything, whether good or bad, that a human being thinks, speaks or performs in action, must leave behind it recognizable traces in the spiritual world and especially in his own being and personal condition. Accordingly, we are all, one with the other, in every moment of our existence here, consciously or unconsciously, voluntarily or involuntarily occupied with completing one sheet after another of our own life story. Here is the number of litterateurs truly great, and here is formed the world's largest library with as many manuscripts as the number of members of Adam's race. That writing cannot be obliterated or altered by human hands. That collection of books is not kept for the sake of the horrifying curiosity that characterizes the contents of most of its vast folios, but for an after study, which in truth is apt to make fools into wise men and bring the foolish ones to the understanding of the righteous. The mere thought of all this should be able to evoke a serious mood even in the most extrovert and lead his attention from life's periphery to its true meaning. And what the read or heard word cannot achieve, shall the living experience of the thing itself bring about, when its appointed time comes. There comes namely sooner or later for every person a moment, when the sources of happiness of the sensual, earthly life dry up, and the mirages of the earthly happiness evaporate away, and when he must once remain alone with himself and with God. Then the light of the sun takes over, whose rays dispel the mists of ignorance and error in the past, an in-depth self-study. The evil, which before had been more or less hidden, here exposes its root, sin, previously known only in occasional prominent manifestations,
is now revealed in its finest shades in the heart, the innermost aspirations and tendencies of selfishness come to daylight here, because the appearance is no longer bewildering. Man's beholding of his own true image of life as well as the memory of that grace and salvation, that he despised, must provoke a severe inner struggle, a break with sin, which now reveals the fullness of its vile being and its nature.
