Pillows Under the Arms
“Woe to them that sew pillows to all armholes.” — Ezekiel xiii., 18.
THE Chaldeans were to capture Jerusalem. God said so. False prophetesses denied it, and, to quell the anxieties of the people, employed a significant symbol by sewing little pillows under the arras, as much as to say, “Whenever you feel these soft pads at the arm-sleeves, bethink yourselves all shall be easy and well.” But alas for the delusion I Notwithstanding all the smoothness of the prophecy, Jerusalem went down in darkness and fire and blood. It is not more certain that you are here this morning, not more certain that that is a window, not more certain that that is a ceiling, not more certain that that is a chair, not more certain that that is a carpet, than it is certain that God has declared destruction to the finally impenitent. Universalism comes out, and tries to quell this fear, and wants to sew two pillows under my arm-sleeves, and wants to sew two pillows under your arm-sleeves. It shall not do it. God helping me, I shall, this morning, put before my own soul and yours the absorbing facts, and I shall try to snatch their pillow of false peace from under the arms of my auditors, and show you what the perils are, that you may, one and all, escape them. Suppose there is some real danger ahead, and a man comes into your house, and says, “There is no peril; be at peace!” and another neighbor comes in, and says, “There is a peril, and I know how you can escape it, and I come to tell you;”
wliicli is the best friend and the best neighbor? “Why, the latter, of course, and I want to act his part to-daj.
There are two branches of Universalism: one made up of the Restorationists, who, while they admit there may be some punishment in the future world, say it will come to an end, and the soul, through a process of reformation, will come up at last into light,* and joy, and peace, and victory; but the vast majority of the Universalists that I have met in the world believe that there is no future punishment at all, and that, whatever may have been our character in this world, the moment we step across the line into the future world we are completely happy! People need not tell me that is not Universalism. I take it not from books; I take it from my own observation, and my frequent converse with men who have adopted such theories. Ilowever, all Universalists agree in saying that the human race will all eventually be happy.
I shall, this morning, show you that Universalism, under any shape, is unscriptural, unreasonable, destructive of good morals, withering to all earnestness in soul -saving, and the means of eternal catastrophe to a great many. You say, “Do you think to impose upon us, this morning, by bringing out that old obsolete book, the Bible — a book fit only- for grandmothers in their second childhood — and propose to prove any thing by that?” I respond by saying it is most reasonable to expect that God would give this race some kind of a revelation. Well, if God has given a revelation, which is it? I can now think of only five books that pretend to be Divine revelations: the Koran, the Shaster, the Zendavesta, the Confucius writings, and the Bible. Which of those five books do you prefer to believe a Divine revelation? The vast majority
364 riLLOWS vxder tue arms.
of the people in the audience say, “Give us the Bible, We take that.” Will you stand by it through all this argument of the morning? “Yes,” you say. So will I stand by it. Having made up our minds that this is the binding statute in the case, now I solemnly impanel all this audience as a jury for the trial, and I shall proceed to open the cause and to call the witnesses.
To prove that there is such a thing as future punishment, I first call up Dives the lost. Let him be sworn. He was a man of great influence in the world. There is no reason why he should falsify. Question: “Dives, is there a perdition?” Ansive)^: “Yes, I have just come from it. It is torment. I can’t get any thing there to cool my tongue. I want a drop of water, but I can’t get it. Do send word to my five brothers, that they come not into that suffering.” Universalism tries to impeach this witness by saying it is all allegory. Lazarus the saved is the Gentile converted; and Dives, who lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torment, is the Jew whose spiritual privileges were cut off in this world! If the Lord Jesus Christ were going to make an allegory, he would not make one so imbecile as that. I do not wonder that Universalists have wrenched that passage until they got red in the face, to make it mean something else; but in all ages of the past, and in all ages of the future, the common-sense reading of that Scripture is that Lazarus went to heaven, and Dives went to hell, and there was a gulf fixed between them they could never cross over.
The next witness I call in the case is an old bent-over man. It is Paul the apostle. Question: “Paul, is there a perdition?” Answer: “In flaming fire taking vengeance upon those who know not God.”
The next witness is a gray -bearded man, clothed in rough hair-cloth. It is Isaiah the prophet. Question: “Isaiah, is there such a place as perdition?” Answer: “Their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.”
The next witness looks as though he may have been very ruddy and beautiful once, but he has lost his beauty and ruddiness, through much family trouble. It is David — David the psalmist. Question: “David, is there any perdition?” Answer: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”
The next witness is a very mild and lovable man. It is John the inspired. Question: “John, is there any such place as perdition?” Answer: “They shall drink of the wine of the wrath of Almighty God, poured without mixture into the cup of his indignation.” And he stops a moment to take breath, and then he says, “They shall be tormented in fire and brimstone in the presence of the angels.” And he stops again to take breath, and then says, “The smoke of their torment asccndeth up for ever and ever.”
But the most important witness is to come. He comes with feet blistered by the long way, with sickly looks from sleeplessness and exposure. It is the Son of God; He before whom we bow ourselves down, not worthy even to kiss his feet, and we say in all reverence, “0 Jesus, is there a perdition?” And he answers, “At the end of the world the Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” And, after stopping a moment, he says, “The children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then he stops a moment, and he resumes, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,”
“Enough I” you say. Isaiah, and David, and Paul, and John, and Christ are enough.” But I will not stop here. I bring you documentary evidence in the parable of the tares, already referred to in Christ’s testimony. You remember, in the parable of the tares, that some people were thrown into a furnace of fire, while it says the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Do you know how the Universalists have squeezed and distorted that passage? They have done so until they have made the furnace to be Jerusalem, and those who are to shine forth as the sun in their Father’s kingdom are the Jews who did not happen to get killed in the earthly wars — an interpretation that would throw any audience into convulsions of laughter if the aw fulness of the theme did not forbid merriment.
You said you would take the Bible for the standard of this trial. Gentlemen of the jury, now I hold you to your word, and I demand that you admit the awful truth that there is a future punishment. “But,” say the Restorationists, “we admit there is a future punishment, but it comes to an end.” My good friends, when will it come to an end? I think we shall have to call back some of the witnesses we have sworn in this case. “John the inspired, what is the duration of that punishment?” He answers: “The smoke of their torment ascendeth up /or ever and evei-y How long is that? I call up Isaiah again. “Isaiah, how long does this punishment last?” “Their worm dieth not, their fire is not quenched I call up Paul again. He says, “They shall be punished with everlastinc, destruction in the presence of the Lord.” I ask reverently again the Lord Jesus Christ how long this punishment lasts, and he replies, “These shall go away into everlasting punishment.” And he says again, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” I leave it to your common sense what that means, what it must mean.
“But,” say a great many, “you ought to go .back to the Greek, and find out that that word everlasting doesn’t mean what you have been representing it to mean.” So there are persons who could not parse a Greek sentence to save themselves from being hanged, and who do not know the difference between Kappa and Epsilon, who talk about Greek. I reply, if there had been a great difference between the original and our translation, God would before this have given it to us in plain English, so that we who do not know Greek could understand it. You can not make me believe that God would keep the truth as to our eternal destiny covered up in a heap of Greek roots. Do you want to be learned? Come, now, and let us all be learned together, and go back and read that passage: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternaV^ The same Greek word in one place is translated “everlasting,” and in the other “eternal;” and if you bedwarf the word “everlasting,” you must bedwarf the word “eternal.” If you dwindle up the sufferings of the lost, then you must dwindle up the rejoicings of the saved. The same effort which would break a chain would snap a harp-string. The same effort that would uptear a dungeon would pull down a mansion. The same effort that would stop a groan would choke a hallelujah. “These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.’’’’ If in the one case the sufferings are not to be eternal, in the other case the rejoicings are not to be eternal. But there is nothing that makes me so tired as being learned, and so I come back from the Greek to the plain English translation, good enough for you and good enough for me. This Bible says that a man who commits the unpardonable sin shall be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come. What does that mean? Where is your restoration after the grave? “He shall be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come,” You Kestorationists, put your hand-screw on that. Try to twist that around, so it shall not mean what God here makes it to mean. Shall neither be forgiven in this world nor in the world that is to come! Ob, my friends, either throw overboard your Bible, or throw overboard Universalism. I press you to that choice to-day, and you niust make it. The whole Bible is against Universalism. Ezekiel is against it. Jeremiah is against it. Isaiah is against it. David is against it. Matthew is against it. Mark is against it. Luke is against it. John is ao;ainst it. Romans is against it. Corinthians is against
o o o
it. Thessalonians is against it. Revelation is against it. Now, I do not at this moment say that the Bible is inspired, or even a virtuous book; but I do say, if the Bible is right, then Universalism is wrong — awfully wrong, outrageously wrong, infinitely wrong, everlastingly wrong.
Still further, Universalism is unreasonable. Here is a railroad map. There is a long line of railroads reaching from New York to California. There is a line of railroads reaching from New York to Boston. There is a line of railroads reaching from New York to Philadelphia. They will come out at the same place. “No,” you say, “they do not.” You tell me that one ends in Boston, and the
Other in Philadelphia, and the other in San Francisco. I deny it. If you want me to believe that, prove it. “Well,” you say, “I can very easily prove it. One railroad goes north, and the other south, and the other goes west.” “Oh,” I say, “you are right. I admit you are right. I yield the position.” In other words, you argue that railroads that go in opposite directions can not come out at the same place. Now, here are two roads for the soul’s travel. The one is faith in Christ, helpful services to others, a struggle for consecration, and doing better all the way up. That is one road. Iloward went that road. Wilberforce went that road. Paul went that road. Ten thousand times ten thousand went that road. Here is the other road. It starts with the rejection of Jesus Christ. It keeps on in sin, and in rebellion against God, all the way through. Eobespierre went on that road. Nero went on that road. All the bad people that have ever lived and died have gone on that road; and the two roads being in opposite directions, they must come out at opposite termini. Nothing but moral insanity can make you think any differently. By inexorable geometry, by common sense, by a calculation plainer than that twice three are six, you come to the conclusion that opposite directions of travel must bring opposite eternal destinies.
“But,” say the Restorationists, “the punishment in the lost world, which we admit, is reformatory, and the souls that go there will gradually struggle up into thorough felicity.” xlbsurdity infinite! Two Sabbaths ago, while I stood in this place, talking, among other things, about the outrages of the Raymond Street Jail — outrages which, I have been informed by prominent official authority in this city, I did not more than half state — at that very moment
16- there was a girl of fifteen years in that Raymond Street Jail, imploring that she might be in a cell alone. She said, “These wretches around here are telling me filthy stories all the time. I can’t stand it here. I want to be alone.” She knew, what every one knows, that bad associations are not reformatory. And yet you try to make me believe that in that world where all the desperadoes and abandoned have gone, the soul is going to get better. Will the thieves make it honest? AVill the libertines make it pure? Will the blasphemers make it holy?
The perdition of ungodly men is a very poor reform school. By inevitable law you know that bad society makes people worse, and that Herod on earth was mild and beautiful compared with what he is now, and that the men who died on the scaffold for their crimes were benefactors and philanthropists compared with their present character. Worse, and getting worse. But if from that world they really- struggle out — have any of them got out yet? Will Robespierre be in heaven in time to welcome the grandchildren of the men he butchered? Will James Fisk be in heaven in time to welcome the widows and orphans whose property he swamped in a Wall Street panic? Oh, what a delicious, savory place heaven would be if the wretches who went down into their graves unwashed got there! You have a child in heaven, you have a sister in heaven — do you think of them as being in that kind of society?
If, as the great majority of the Universalists argue, there is no hell, tell me, then, where the people of Sodom and Gomorrah went? If all is fair beyond the line of this world, irrespective of our character here, then the men who stole Charley Ross, and who were shot for their crimes, are better off to-day than the. parents who sit frenzied with grief, waiting for the pattering of the feet of the little captive; then Ananias was better off” than Sapphira, for he lied first, and so beat his wife three or four minutes into glory. There is a hell. Your common sense declares it.
Still further, Universalism is, willingly or unwillingly, the abettor of had morals. It is the high-priest of suicide. How many people there have been who have got tired of their troubles, and said, “Here, we must get out of these troubles. We will just take our own lives, then we will be free. There is nothing between us and glory but a phial of laudanum or a revolver;” and so they swallowed the laudanum or cracked the revolver, and that has been the end of it. They step right over into glory. Tlaey have been taught so. You know that all those who in their right mind commit suicide — for I speak not of those who are deranged, and take their own lives; they are not responsible for any thing they do — but I say that the majority of those who in their seeming right mind take thei own lives, leave a letter on the table, saying, “Meet me in heaven.” They are going right over. Oh, if that doctrine be true, why do not some of you who have been struggling with overwhelming troubles put an end to them, and buy an overdose of belladonna on your way home, or this afternoon leap from the top of your house, and get straight into glory?
“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
* * if if Hf if
“When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?”
Why does he not do it? It is because the man knows that if, in his sane moments, he takes his own life, he drops into ruin.
A man near Utica, New York, sent for his pastor, a Universalist minister, and said to him, “If I should die now, would I go to heaven?” “Most certainly,” the minister replied. “You think there is no possible doubt about it?” “None at all, sir.” “Well,” said the man, “I have had trouble enough, now I am going away from it. I am going to leave the world, and I am going now;” and he drew a pistol, and put it to his own temple, when the minister clutched his arm, and said, “Stop! stop! there may be a hell!” Then the man turned to the minister, and said, “You preach what you don’t believe. You are a deceiver.” If there be a man in this house to-day who has at any time had the idea of taking his own life, let me persuade you not to sit down and write, “Meet me in heaven;” you will not go there. The fact that there is a perdition is the mightiest moral restraint that the world has ever felt. When you try to upset this doctrine of a future place of punishment, you are abetting crime.
Universalist churches in our cities are surrounded by so many churches of other kinds that you can not see their full influence; but in the New England villages, or the villages at the Far West, where there is only one church, and that a Universalist church, or where the Universalist church is dominant over all others — in such villages, inevitably and always, you find profane swearing, drunkenness. Sabbath-breaking, lust, and every form of abomination, rampant. Give the doctrine of Universalism full swing in any village, or in any city, and it consumes it — financially, morally, and spiritually. I have seen its effects again and again in the villages at the West, where it left not one green thing, I tell you that that doctrine is the foe of God and man; and, come fair or foul, I hold it up in the presence of this audience for your denunciation. “Thou shalt not surely die,” was the first plaster that the devil ever spread; but he spread it so large, there is enough to salve the consciences of ages.
Still further. Universal ism is withering to all earnestness in soul-saving. What is the matter with a great many of the Protestant churches to-day? They have this disease of Universalism in a milder form. They adopt the Heidelberg Catechism or the Westminster Assembly, or they sit in Methodist conferences or in Baptist associations; but there is so much Universalism in the air, they are cowed down. They dare not preach a rugged Gospel. I’hey say “heaven” with a shout, but they say “hell” with a whisper; so that the people do not know exactly what they did say; and the Calvinists think they said “hell,” find the Eestorationists think they said “bell,” and the merchants think they said “sell,” and so they are all satisfied. Oh, I abhor this namby-pambyism in religion! What is the reason we do not have any more conversions in our churches? It is because we do not sufficiently preach rewards and punishments. We tell the righteous it shall be M’ell with them; but not in the same emphasis do we tell the wicked it shall be ill with them.
Why did Samuel Davies, and Nettleton, and Baxter, and the Wesleys, and Whitefield, and Osborne, and Daniel Baker count the conversions under their ministry by tens and tens of thousands? It was because their sermons rang with the doxologies of the saved, and crackled with the fires of the lost.
Did you ever hear of a great awakening in a Universalist cburcli? Never. What would they get awakened about? They arc all safe, always have been safe, always will be. What is the use of the jailer’s rusbing tbrougb between the falling walls of the prison, crying, “What must I do to be saved?” He was safe before the prison began to rock. What is the use of the sinking man’s crying, “Lord, save; I perish?” Stop your noise. Tbe water is not up to your cbin! What is the use of making such a fuss about three thousand souls saved on the Day of Pentecost? They were as saved before as they were after. What did Paul mean when be feared becoming a castaway? Cast away on what coast? Tbe coast of everlasting love? Wby are the wicked in the last day represented as crying out, “Kocks and mountains, fall on us, and hide us from the face of the Lamb?” No danger! Ob, if we want to bring souls to Jesus Cbrist, men and women of God, we must tell the whole truth, and bide none of it!
What means that picture, in some of the old books, representing Martin Lutber almost bent double by a paroxysm of earnestness while he is preaching about men’s souls? What meant Thomas Chalmers, standing in his Edinburgh pulpit, warning people to flee from the wrath to come until he actually foamed at the mouth? Why did John Sammerfield and Robert M’Cheyne preach themselves so early into the grave? Why was it that when Mr. Venn described the perils of an immortal soul, history tells us the audience “dropped like slacked lime?’’ Why was Edward Payson so anxious for the salvation of men that his doctors said his body was in a continuous fever? Oh, my brethren, what we in the ministry most want is to be aroused, convicted, melted, rebaptized, surcharged with the power of the Lord God Almighty. Swinnoch said a thing that made me quake, boclj, mind, and soul, when I first read it. He said, “It is an awful thing to fall into hell from under a pulpit; but what an awful thing to fall into hell out of a pulpit.” Oh, that God would give us grace to see the infinite sham of modern Universalism, and giv& us wisdom to stop sewing pillows under the arm-sleeves!
0 mj soul, wake up! Ministers of Jesus Christ, in the United States and Great Britain, wake up! There is a hell, and it is our place to keep people out of it.
Still further, Universalism has ruined for eternity a great many souls. East -south -east of Boston there is a light-house called Minot’s Ledge Light -house. It was with great difiiculty that the Government, in 1857, put down but four stones, and in 1858 they put down but six layers of stone; but after a while the work was accomplished. It is very important that there should be a light-house there. When the wind is blowing from the north-east, and ships are coming on toward Boston harbor, if they happen to miss the harbor they go on that rock but for the light-house. I see one of the freight line of the Cunarders coming on toward Boston harbor. The wind is north-east. There are a hundred passengers on board the vessel.
1 sljdy get into Minot’s Ledge Light -house. I go up the winding stairs until I come to the top, and with a hammer I break the glass, and I blow out the light. The captain of the Cunarder is pacing the deck, not knowing exactly what to do. “The wind is from the north-east,” he says. “It is getting pretty late to go in to-night, but we are not anywhere near Minot’s Ledge Light-house, I am a little confused about the lights along the coast, but I think I will try it.” Hark! There is a grating on the bottom of the steamer. There is a quiver from stem to
Stern. Then there is a keeling over, and a crash / All lost! All lost! Whose fluilt was it? The captain’s? No. Never a braver man walked the deck. Was it the crew’s? No. They were faithful fellows. Whose fault? Mine, for I blew out the light.
Now, let me say that every minister of the Gospel and every Christian man is a light-house-keeper. Upon him is a greater responsibility than ever rested upon the man who keeps the Bell Kock Light -house, off Scotland, or the Barnegat or Ilatteras Light-house. God has kindled a great illumination on all the rocks of danger, saying, “Stand off! Yonder is your harbor. Yonder is youv wharf. Yonder are your friends, waiting to greet you. Rocks here — nothing but rocks. Standoff!” What does Universalism do? It comes up, and blows out the light. It says, “Sail on. There are no rocks for immortal shipwreck. Sail on. All is well. All is well.” Oh, what a responsibility! I would rather be the engineer of a rail train with four or five hundred passengers coming on when the drawbridge is off, and know it, and 3’et not stop, than a LTniversalist minister taking a whole church with him off the brink, giving them no warning, blowing no trumpet, never crying out, “The rocks! The rocks!” Universalism is a deception high as heaven and deep as hell; and if it be let alone, it will ruin half the race. But it is not going to be let alone. The Church of God, as it rises up to its mission, will cry the alarm to the people, and there will go up prayer to God, so that he will flash upon the nations these tremendous realities.
If I live forty years to preach — and I expect to preach forty 3-ears longer — I want to spend the whole time in settino; before men the two destinies of eternal life and eternal darkness. But if I should not live as long as that, and if this should be the last sermon I shall ever preach, as it may be, then I want you to take this as my dying testimony: there is a heaven — there is a hell. Accept of Christ, and you reach the one; reject him, and you drop headlong into the other.
But it is time for this jury to render their verdict. I have shown you that Universalism is unscriptural, unreasonable; that it is destructive to good morals; that it is withering to all earnestness in saving souls; that it is the eternal discomfiture of a great many people. In courts of law, when the jury come in, they stand and render their verdict: the foreman giving the verdict and the clerk of the court writing it down; but in this religious assemblage you must render the verdict in silence, seated, so far as you have room to be seated, God listening, and angels recording.
If what I have said this morning is true, what arc you going to do about it? What step will you take? My soul has been wrung with the awfulness of this theme. If God had not helped me, I should have fallen down between my chair and your pew; but I did not dare to hold back the theme. As I expect to meet my Maker and my Judge, I did not dare to hide any of the truth; but I was all the time sustained with the idea that I could, before I got through, tell you how to get off from your peril; and that if I pointed you to the flaming sword, it was only to show you a refuge; and if I showed you a chasm, it was only to show you a bridge over it. The Lord Jesus to-day breaks through all obstacles, and runs against the opposing spears, and tramples on the sharpened spikes, and springs into the midst of this assembly, and throws his firms around 3’ou, and begs you to be saved. Will you shake him off? Will you hurl him on his back? Will you trample on him, putting one foot on his holy heart, and the other on his mangled brow, and from the corpse of a murdered Christ will you leap into woe? Stop! Stop! Stop! Jesus came to save you. By the tears that ran down his scarred cheek — by the blood that oozed fi’om his whipped back — by the sweat of agony that stood out in beads upon his brow — by the dying groan which broke the heart of the rocks, and made the sun faint dead away in the heavens — I beg you to accept of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Oh, fling not away 3’our immortal soul, when so much has been done to ransom it! When you may be saved, why will you be lost? Some one suggested to me yesterday that there were some persons who consoled themselves by saying, “If I am to be lost, there will be a great many others with mc, so I won’t care so much.” Oh, what poor philosophy!
When the Lake Shore Eailroad cars went off the track a year or two ago, and a hundred and fifty people were crushed, was it any mitigation of the sorrow that there were a hundred and fifty instead of one man? When, three years ago, five hundred miles off Newfoundland, we thought our ship was making the last plunge, did the screams of seven hundred frenzied passengers mitigate the horror of that night? Oh no. If there is any man determined to be lost, better be lost alone than in a crowd; their sorrow added to your sorrow, their disaster added to your disaster. I can not believe that there are any in this house who will be such fools as to reject the only salvation offered them this day in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the infinite Kedeemer. I do not know whether my cheek turns pale at the tliouglit; but I do know that my heart quakes as I cry out with Isaiah, “Who among us can dwell in devouring fire? Who of us can lie down in eternal burnings?”
Men and women! there is only one name given under heaven among men whereby you may be saved, and that is Jesus. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Depend upon it, if you are lost it will not be God’s fault. He has done every thing to save you. It will not be Christ’s flxult. He has pleaded with blood-red earnestness for your salvation. It will not be the Holy Spirit’s fault. He has this day stirred and entreated you mightily. If you are lost, it will be your own fault. You will forge your own chains. You will write your own death-warrant. You will bolt and bar the door of heaven, and doubly bolt it and doubly bar it against your own soul; and you might as well this day, if that is your determination, make your valedictory, saying: “Farewell, 0 Church of God! I don’t want the comfort of your sacraments. Farewell, 0 Holy Bible! I don’t want your illumination. Farewell, 0 Holy Ghost! bother me no more about the great future. Farewell, O heaven! I don’t want to hear thy clapping cymbals, nor to mingle in thy hallelujahs. Farewell, O my glorified kindred! father, mother, sister, brother, and my dear children who broke my heart when they went away from me. Farewell! Keep no longer a seat for me by your side at the heavenly banquet. I am not coming. I take another road. I make another choice. Across these spaces I fling this kiss of everlasting separation. Good-bye, good-bye. This is my eternal valedictory!”