“Every religious writer, or speaker, or teacher, who absents himself from danger and is not present where it is, and where the Evil has its stronghold, is a deceiver, and that will eventually become apparent. For every one who comes to the gates of death and its doors open for him has to lay aside from him all the pomp and grandeur and wealth and worldly reputation, and the stars of knightly orders and other tokens of honour—whether they were distributed by kings and emperors or by the crowd and the public—has to lay them all aside as things which are entirely inappropriate and superfluous. Only one exception is made, and that is with reference to the man who in his lifetime has been a religious writer or teacher or speaker. If he is found in possession of any such things, he is not allowed to lay them aside. No, they are packed up in a bundle and returned to him, and he is compelled to keep them and carry them, as a thief may be compelled to carry his stolen goods. And with that bundle he must enter the place where he is to be judged. Having been a religious teacher, he will be judged by the true religious teachers, who all of them so long as they lived were mocked, persecuted, derided, scorned, and spat upon. Ah! how frightful it is for the natural man to stand here on earth and be derided, mocked, and spat upon! More frightful still to stand in eternity with this bundle under his arm, or attired in his . . . finery!”
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