AWAKE, OH, THOU SLEPER.

In his book, "The Path of Prosperity," James Allen wrote on 'The Lessons of Evil,' that unrest and pain and sorrow are the shadows of life. There is no heart in all the world that has not felt the sting of pain, no mind that has not been tossed upon the dark waters of trouble, no eye that has not wept the hot, blinding tears of unspeakable anguish. There is no household where the Great Destroyers, disease and death, have not entered, severing heart from heart, and casting over all the dark pall of sorrow. In the strong, and apparently indestructible meshes of evil all are more or less fast caught, and pain, unhappiness, and misfortune wait upon mankind.
In his journey to find out, under the circumstances, whether there is any hope for humanity, James comes across men and women whom, with the object of escaping, or in some way mitigating this overshadowing gloom, rush blindly into innumerable devices, pathways by which they fondly hope to enter into a happiness which will not pass away.
In their folly, they find themselves caught up in the web of the same evil they were running away from, in the yoke of Satan, which but entice them for a while, in the deception of immediate gratification to satisfy the demands of the lower self- the sensuous body.
Indulging in sensual excitement, they shut themselves, for a while, from the sorrows of the world, and surround themselves with enervating luxuries, subordinating all things to the achievement of that object; and to all the happiness sought seems to come, and the soul for a time, is lulled into a sweet security, and an intoxicating forgetfulness of the existence of evil, but the day of disease comes at last, or some great sorrow, temptation, or misfortune breaks suddenly in on the unfortified soul, and the fabric of its fancied happiness is torn to shreds.
All along, we see, through the eye of the spirit, this struggle of humanity in the object of escaping, finding themselves caught up in a similar scenario to that found St. Augustine, who explains in the  insights of his classical passage, in his confessions, before he embraced the way of life as shown by the Christ, obviously after he opened the bible and read Ephesians 5:14 which says, "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." He states: :


Often does a man, when heavy sleepiness is on his limbs, defer to shake it off, and, though not approving, encourage it; even so was I sure it was better to surrender to thy love than to yield to my own lusts; yet though the former course convinced me, the latter pleased and held me back. There is nothing in me to answer thy call, ' Awake! Thou sleeper,' but only drawling, drowsy words, ' Presently, yes, presently; wait a little while.' But the ' presently ' had no present, and the ' little while ' grew long, for I was afraid thou wouldst hear me too soon, and heal me at once of my disease of lust, which I wished to satiate rather than to see extinguished ." 
And so, humanity, caught up in the heavy sleepiness that courts the Great Destroyer and finding immediate gratification to the happiness sought, fails, just like Augustine, to heed to the Master's call to wake up from the apparent slumber, but for the time of this short lived happiness, convincingly respond to the wake up call with drawling drowsy words, "presently, yes, presently," while the Master who stands on the door, knocking, while humanity, inside asks Him, like St. Augustine, to wait a little while, while all the presently he is lulled by the angel of darkness, in the enervating luxuries of the presently, failing, in the darkness that surrounds him, to see the Damocletian sword of pain which hangs over the head of every personal joy, ready, at any moment, to fall and crush the soul of him who is unprotected by the knowledge in the principles of the Christ.
But significant to the above verse, all things become visible when they are exposed by the Light, for everything that becomes visible is light (bible hub). For this reason, Let all humanity Awake from their slumber, and arise from the dead, and the Light of Truth will shine on us all; for this is the true religion, that will keep at bay, the unrest and pain and sorrow that are the apparent shadows of the presently life.