life for that torment of perpetual struggle which the forbidden
knowledge of Good and Evil has entailed upon all incarcerated in a human
form.

_For self-abnegation is the law of heaven!_

* * * * *

'Brothers,' said the merciful Father, 'go, and sin not, for of all
things that pass among men must a strict account be rendered. For are
not their evil deeds written upon the eternally living memory of a just
God? Evil lurks in the land of your exile; it may find its way into your
own hearts, for you are to become wholly human, and to lose for a time
the memory of your home in heaven. But even in that far country you will
find the Book of Life, which I have given for the guidance and
consolation of the fallen. For it is known even there that 'God is
Love!''

* * * * *

Then the journey of the Heaven Brothers began through the blinding
clouds and trailing mists of chaos, in whose palpable gloom all memories
are obliterated. Naked, trembling, and human, they arrived upon the
shifting sands of the world of Time and Death.

A vague, shadowy sense, like a forgotten dream which we struggle vainly
to recall, often flitted through their clay-clogged souls, of a
strangely glorious life in some higher sphere; but all attempts to give
definite form to such bewildering visions ended but in fantastic
reveries of mystic possibilities or dim yearnings of unseen glories.