University of Virginia Library

Expiation by suffering

What must the end be? They must eventually expi- ate their sin through suffering. The sin, which one has made his bosom companion, comes back to him at last with accelerated force, for the devil knoweth his time is short. Here the Scriptures declare that evil is temporal, not eternal. The dragon is at last stung to death by his own malice; but how many periods of torture it may take to remove all sin, must depend upon sin's obduracy.

Revelation xii. 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.