worse doom awaits it and that it is lost.  For if it is not, at the moment of death, pure enough or good enough for heaven, into which there “shall in no wise enter anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie,” [5] that soul, according to this false belief, is lost.  Yet, in fact, what do we see within us and around us, as we honestly look into our own lives, and upon the lives both of the best and of the worst among us?  We see this, and we are convinced that we are

not mistaken, that even among the most marked extremes of good men and evil men, few even of the best are so free from stain or fault as, at death, to be certainly fit for heaven, and few so vile and degraded as not to have still some good in them.  And between these two extremes there are multitudes of mixed characters, in part good and in part bad.  Among these, of whom we know that they are full of worth yet full of imperfections too, we count so many who are most dear to us, many the companions of our lives, our kindred, and acquaintances, and cherished friends, whose failings and whose virtues we know so well, of mixed and imperfect character, too frail for heaven, too good, too lovable for hell, partly good and partly not good, strong and also weak, marred with inconsistencies, and often for these very inconsistencies the more dear to us, of whom, so truly have we loved and even honoured them, it seems almost like an outrage upon their memory to bring ourselves to think

that there was just so much of evil in them and just so little good, as would suffice to turn the balance against them and thus fix, at the moment of their death, their final doom.

What are we to think of such as these?  Of some we perhaps say within ourselves, “Would that there had been but a little amendment of this blemish!  A little more of strength and purpose against that fault!  If only this besetting hardness had not been the spoiler of his life, that great heedlessness, that fatal procrastination, this too frequent sin!  Oh! but for this or that which marred the fair and well rounded character!  But for this we should have been full of hope: there was so much on the better side, that we should have been full of trust, and even of confidence.  But, now, what are we to think?  If only there were some fit and fair proportion to be thought of, duly measured out, of reward and punishment, a mixed destiny for a mixed character,

partly good and partly evil for those who in this life were in part good and in part were evil!  But these two awful and sharp alternatives, either reward or punishment, these two separate issues, heaven or hell, and if not heaven then necessarily and inevitably hell!  What shall we think?  We dare not think.  In the Bible we are encouraged to believe that we shall receive the due reward of our deeds, whether they be good or whether they be evil. [8]  But how shall any receive in heaven the due reward of evil deeds done on earth? and how, in hell, shall any wretched soul receive in any truth the due rewards of good deeds done on earth?  Yet in each, there was some good even in the worst, and some evil even in the best.”

We see then what follows upon this false belief, that at death an instant judgment assigns finally the destiny of all men, to men of every degree of wickedness, without distinction, Hell; and one final

and absolute Heaven to men of every varying measure of goodness.  Surely there is a great perplexity in this.  No wonder if such beliefs lead men to dread the thought of death, of their own death, of the death of their friends.  No mere physical repulsion makes us shrink, but rather the uncertainty and doubt of what may follow,

   “The dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,”

and makes us Christian men and women turn to find relief from these bewildering fears by plunging deeply into the waters of life’s amusements and ambitions.  It is the uncertainty of things, wearing to some the aspect of caprice, which leads to recklessness, and sometimes to defiance.

I believe, from my heart, that Holy Scripture rightly understood solves these confusing riddles.  I believe that a more sound and Scriptural grasp of what will be the future of each of us after death,

the restoration of a right belief in an Intermediate State, will go far to correct these unworthy and most un-Christian fears.  But it is said, at times, that nothing can be really known about this Intermediate State, that all that can be asserted of it is mere guess and vain conjecture, and even that it betrays a too curious intrusion into things unseen to speculate about the condition of souls after death.  Yes! if we only speculate, but not surely if we seek humbly to find out what the Bible has taught us.  S. Paul did not think it a too presumptuous intrusion into things beyond the reach of our knowledge to make this enquiry.  “I would not have you to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep.”  He would rather that the Thessalonians should know all that can be known, to their edification.  And something can be known, or he would not have written this.  And to know it will be to our edification also.  Certainly to ignore what can be known has led, as we have seen,

to loss and offence in these days.  Therefore I propose to try and set before you not idle speculations indeed, but what has been actually revealed in Holy Scripture, or may be drawn from it about the Intermediate State.  It is upon Holy Scripture that we must depend for our learning.  At least I shall make no attempt to build arguments upon any other foundation than Holy Scripture.  But let us, in God’s Name, get out of Holy Scripture all that can, according to the proportion of the faith, be deduced from it.  It is as perilous, not to say as undutiful towards God, the Revealer, to neglect what He has for our sakes revealed, as it would be to invent speculations of our own about that which He has not revealed.

The unseen world is not easy to apprehend, and to our matter-of-fact English mind and temper is especially difficult.  Yet, with the awful future in our mind, which awaits not only those who are very dear to ourselves, but ourselves also, we

must be dull indeed, if we have no concern for it.  Then if sober questioning may reveal more clearly to us what Holy Scripture can tell us of things that shall befall each of us, we may hope to gain fresh confidence, and to renew our trust in Him Who launched us into time, that we may live with Him in eternity through Jesus Christ our Lord.

II.

“Jesus said unto him, Verily I say onto thee, To-day shall thou be with Me in Paradise.”

—S. Luke xxiii. 43.