"There is always punishment so long as we are in mortal belief, but it is only in mortal belief we can suffer, for the spirit made in the image and likeness of God can not suffer, neither know suffering.
"The word everlasting should be translated age-lasting, to give the original meaning. Fire is a symbol of purification, and in the language of ancient times it was customary to use strong figures of speech.
"In the fifteenth chapter of John, wherein Jesus explains about the vine and branches, what could be plainer than his illustration of the dead branches? 'Every branch that beareth not fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit.'
"Every false belief is a branch that beareth not fruit, hence must be taken away and destroyed even as dead limbs are burned. Falsity or evil, being nothingness, can not exist because it is not of the real creation and is necessarily cast into the fire of purification, an illustration well understood at the time, since all the city refuse was taken to Gehenna, a place outside Jerusalem, where fire was always kept for the purpose of burning this waste matter.
"'Every branch that beareth fruit is purged'—that is, if you are a mixture of good and evil beliefs, you will have to be cleansed of the evil, before you can do much with the good. This cleansing process is quite properly named purging. This is what we undergo in suffering.
"'He whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,' means the good in us chastens us, cleanses us for the further working of the Good. Punishment, then, there must be, just as long as we believe in, and fellowship with error.
"Mrs. McClaren, a staunch Presbyterian, did not seem satisfied with this explanation, but Mrs. Pearl told her not to let the question trouble her, for if she would do the best she could with what she knew, in due time the solution would come to her.
"In the night it came. After she retired, the question kept pressing upon her so that she could not sleep.
"About two o'clock it seemed as though a great flood of light came, and with it the clearance of the whole problem. The texts on that theme became illumined as it were, and she could see how impossible it is for the spirit to suffer or be punished when it is like God who can not 'behold evil.' She came over this morning and told me about it. I will give you her explanation of Matt. xxv: 31, 32. 'When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.'
"The Son of man, consciousness of Truth, shall come (be developed) with all glorious thoughts (angels) and judge us in all our ways (nations) and shall discriminate between the false and the true, the evil and the good, then the good motives or good thoughts (sheep) shall coalesce or be set on the right hand with Truth, and the evil or erroneous beliefs (goats) shall be relegated to the left, the negative or no-side, and swallowed up in their native darkness which is nothingness.