PHILIP. How prodigious!
CAPTAIN. How stupendous!
LESBIA. What a miracle!
LEOGAIRE. What a marvel!
KING. What enchantment! what bewitchment!
Who can bear this? who can grant this?
ALL. Christ is God, the one true God.
KING. What a bold deceit is practised
Here, blind people, to deceive you,
In the making of these marvels,
Which you have not sense to see
Are in outward show but acted
And within are fraud! However,
That the truth be now established,
I will own myself convinced,
If in argument shall Patrick
Prove his case: and so attend
As the grave dispute advances.
If the soul was made immortal
It could never be inactive
Even for a single moment.
PATRICK. Yes; and every dream that passes
Proves this truth; because the dreams
That engender numerous phantoms
Are discourses of the soul
That ne'er sleeps, and as these shadows
Simulate the imperfect actions
Of the senses, a strange language
And imperfect is produced;
And 'tis thus that in their trances
Men dream things that are at once
Inconsistent and fantastic.
KING. Well, then, this being so, I ask
Was Polonia when this happened
Dead or not? For if but only
In a swoon, what mighty marvel,
Then, was done? But this I pass.
If she really had departed,
Then to one of the two places,
Heaven or hell, so named, O Patrick,
By yourself, it must have gone.
If it was in heaven, 'twas hardly
Merciful in God to send it
Back into this world, to hazard
A new chance of condemnation,
When 'twas once in grace and happy.
This is surely true. If, likewise,
It had been in hell, 'tis adverse
To strict justice, since it were not
Just that that which by its badness
Once had earned such punishment,
Should again be given the chances
Of regaining grace. It must,
I presume, be taken as granted
That God's justice and His mercy
Cannot possibly be parted.
Where, I ask then, was her soul?
PATRICK. Hear, Egerius, the answer.
I concede that for the soul,
Sanctified by holy baptism,
Heaven or hell must be its goal,
Out of which, by God's commandment,
Speaking of His usual power,
It can never more be absent.
But if of His absolute power
There is question, God could drag it
Even from hell itself; but this
Is not what we have to argue.
That the soul doth go to either
Of those places, must be granted
When 'tis severed from the body
Once for all by mortal absence
To return to it no more;
But when otherwise commanded
To it to return, it waiteth
In a certain state of passage,
And remains as 'twere suspended
In the universe, not having
Any special place allotted.
For the Almighty mind forecasting
All things, when from out His essence,
As th' exemplar, the fair pattern
Of His thought, this glorious fabric
He brought forth to light and gladness,
Saw this very incident,
And well knowing what would happen,
That this soul would here return,
Kept it for awhile inactive,
Seemingly unfixed, yet fixed.
This is the authentic answer
That theology, that sacred
Science, gives to what you have asked me.
But another point remaineth:
There are other places, mark me,
Both of glory and of pain,
Than you think; and of these latter
One is called the Purgatory,
Where the soul of him who haply
Dies in grace, is purged from stains,
Sinful stains which it contracted
In the world: for into heaven
None can pass till these are cancelled.
And thus, there 'tis purified,
Cleansed by fire from all that tarnished,
Till to God's divinest presence
Pure and clean at length it passes.