“All is now ready in this place.  We must only await the proper time to begin.”

We were silent for a while.  Doctor Winchester was the first to speak: 

“What is the proper time?  Have you any approximation, even if you are not satisfied as to the exact day?” He answered at once: 

“After the most anxious thought I have fixed on July 31!”

“May I ask why that date?” He spoke his answer slowly: 

“Queen Tera was ruled in great degree by mysticism, and there are so many evidences that she looked for resurrection that naturally she would choose a period ruled over by a God specialised to such a purpose.  Now, the fourth month of the season of Inundation was ruled by Harmachis, this being the name for ‘Ra’, the Sun-God, at his rising in the morning, and therefore typifying the awakening or arising.  This arising is manifestly to physical life, since it is of the mid-world of human daily life.  Now as this month begins on our 25th July, the seventh day would be July 31st, for you may be sure that the mystic Queen would not have chosen any day but the seventh or some power of seven.

“I dare say that some of you have wondered why our preparations have been so deliberately undertaken.  This is why!  We must be ready in every possible way when the time comes; but there was no use in having to wait round for a needless number of days.”

And so we waited only for the 31st of July, the next day but one, when the Great Experiment would be made.

Chapter XVII Doubts and Fears

We learn of great things by little experiences.  The history of ages is but an indefinite repetition of the history of hours.  The record of a soul is but a multiple of the story of a moment.  The Recording Angel writes in the Great Book in no rainbow tints; his pen is dipped in no colours but light and darkness.  For the eye of infinite wisdom there is no need of shading.  All things, all thoughts, all emotions, all experiences, all doubts and hopes and fears, all intentions, all wishes seen down to the lower strata of their concrete and multitudinous elements, are finally resolved into direct opposites.

Did any human being wish for the epitome of a life wherein were gathered and grouped all the experiences that a child of Adam could have, the history, fully and frankly written, of my own mind during the next forty-eight hours would afford him all that could be wanted.  And the Recorder could have wrought as usual in sunlight and shadow, which may be taken to represent the final expressions of Heaven and Hell.  For in the highest Heaven is Faith; and Doubt hangs over the yawning blackness of Hell.