Short your suffering, My beloved!
To reward you I will open
All my Father’s Heavenly Mansions;
I will take you into Heaven,
Where we all shall dwell together.”
“So it shall be, brother,” concluded the young girl, fixing on Tichon a long steady look, “he who will be burned shall be saved. It is well to burn for the love of Christ!”
Tichon remained silent. He watched the moths fluttering round the fire till they perished in the flames, and remembered Cornelius’ words: “Like gnats and midgets, the more you try to kill them the more in numbers come! So the sons of Russia shall cast themselves by thousands into the Red Death!”
“What are you thinking about, brother?” the girl asked. “Are you afraid of the furnace? Courage! Despise it! fear not! The pain won’t last a moment! and quick! the body will release the soul! The fear lasts only while waiting, but once in it all is forgotten. When it begins to burn, you will see Christ, with legions of angels, drawing the soul out of the body; and Christ our Hope blesses the soul, endows it with a divine power, and no longer heavy, but as on wings, it flutters about with the angels, like a bird, rejoiced to have escaped its prison! Long it had cried unto the Lord; ‘Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy name.’ And now what it asked for has been granted. The prison is burning in the furnace, and the soul like a pearl, like pure gold, is soaring up to the Lord!”
Such joy shone in her eyes, that she might have been already beholding what she was describing.