Such a spirit is in perilous case.

A choice for evil breeds an aversion to all moral and intellectual light and a craving for influences and associations of impurity. 

Spirits of this character have usually being incarned in bodies where the animal passions had great sway. 

Such a spirit is in perilous case. 

The guardians retire from the presence―

They cannot breathe the atmosphere, which surrounds it―

Other spirits take their place―

Spirits who in their earth-life had been victims to kindred vices.

The spirit has found all its pleasure in bodily gratifications, and when the body is dead, the spirit still hovers round the scene of its former gratifications and lives over again the bodily life in the vices of those whom it lures to sin. 

It is the influence of these debased spirits, which aggravates the difficulty of retracing lost steps, which makes the descent of Avernus so easy―the return so toilsome.

The slopes of Avernus are dotted with spirits hurrying to their destruction, sinking with mad haste to ruin. 

Each is the centre of a knot of malignant spirits who find their joy in wrecking souls and dragging them down to their own miserable level. 

When the desire for progress rises, the spirit makes its first step. 

It becomes amenable to holy and ennobling influence and its desire for holiness is encouraged and the spirit is purified.

We know little of the lower spheres. 

We only know vaguely that there are separations made between degrees and sorts of vice. 

The spirit that wallows in impurity and vice sinks lower until it loses conscious identity and becomes practically extinct. 

Mercifully, such cases are rare and spring only from the soul's deliberate rejection of all that is good and ennobling. 

This is the sin unto death of which Jesus told His followers―

The sin against the Holy Spirit of God. 

It is the sin of exalting the animal to the extinction of the spiritual―of degrading even the corporeal―of cultivating sensual earthly lusts―of depraving even the lowest tastes―of reducing the human to the level of the lowest brute.

In such the divine essence is quenched―

The baser elements are fostered, forced and developed to undue excess. 

They gain absolute sway―

They quench the spirit and extinguish all desire for progress.

The soul sinks down until it is lost in fathomless obscurity. 

This is the unpardonable sin. 

Unpardonable, not because the Supreme will not pardon, but because the sinner chooses it to be so. 

Unpardonable, because pardon is impossible where sin is congenial and penitence unfelt.

Punishment is ever the immediate consequence of sin―

It is of its essence not arbitrarily meted out but the inevitable result of the violation of law.

This is the first step―

The retracing of false steps―

The undoing of error, and the creation in the spirit of another longing. 

The spiritual atmosphere is changed, and into it good angels enter readily and aid the striving soul. 

It is isolated from evil agencies. 

Remorse and sorrow are fostered. 

The spirit becomes gentle and tender, amenable to influences of good. 

The hard, cold, repellant tone is gone, and the soul progresses. 

So the results of former sin are purged away and the length and bitterness of punishment alleviated.