CHAP. XII]

PLACE UNKNOWN

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wicked men come before the Judge, evidently in the forms which they wore on earth; and in all the teaching by direct language or in parable on this subject the preservation of the separate identity of the souls is taken as a fact.

That also the good and the evil shall be separated is made clear to us. Between them there is to be a great gulf, and none may pass it from either side. But where shall be the abode of either we are not told. Only that the wicked must 'depart from Me,' while the good are called to come and inherit the kingdom prepared for you,' the place which our Lord went before them to prepare for them.1

2

Nor do we know clearly what shall be the nature of the life of either. The hades, or hell, which the wicked are cast into is described by our Lord as everlasting punishment,' which is contrasted with the 'life eternal' of the righteous, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when the doom has fallen. That there shall be physical torment of fire has been supposed from some expressions of casting them into a furnace of fire, as

3

well as of being 'tormented in this flame.' But these seem to be only suggested from prevalent Hebrew conceptions, based on the sensations of the nervous system of our bodies, in which the severest pain is that of burning, for this physical pain is scarcely conceivable in reference to a disembodied spirit. It might even be possible to gather from the imagery the idea of purifying fire, that shall in time burn up everything that offends, the refiner's fire of Malachi,1 the baptism of fire of John the Baptist.2 Setting aside these parables, the essential distinction between the fate of the good and the wicked remains that the former enter into life, and the latter depart into death. And as we have seen in Chapter VI. the essential thing of life is the sensible presence of God, and that of death is absence from Him.

Of this latter fate the wicked reck lightly in the present world. The gratification of their selfish desires-gluttony, drunkenness, ease, lust, vanity, ambition, hatred, malice, cruelty, in each according to his several idiosyncrasy-is their present enjoyment, and they choose not to think of the future. But when the future becomes the present it will be different. None of these corporeal joys can pass the grave. In the resurrection there will be no

1 iii. 2.

2 Matt. iii. 11; Luke iii. 16.

CHAP. XII]

THE FINAL FATE

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body to be pampered, no room for indulgences in evil desires. By so much as were these gratified in life, by so much will the impossibility of gratification for evermore be a torture. There is no deeper agony, says the poet of hell, than the remembrance in misery of happiness gone. Yet to these evil minds there will be the yet sharper pang that they will see the bliss of the poor who lay at their gates, and they will learn that such bliss is never more for them. It is when they find the door is shut that the wailing and gnashing of teeth will begin.

There is nothing to forbid the hope that purgation may yet in some long distant time work repentance. But neither is there ground to believe it. They had Moses and the prophets, they had Jesus and the Holy Ghost, yet they would persist in sin; and even if we hope, we dare not persuade ourselves of any certainty that woe may at last bring remorse. We can but leave it in the hands of God.

But let us turn now to those on whose ears will fall the joyful words, 'Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.'1 It is the kingdom of God, and God will be their

1 Matt. xxv. 34.

Father, as well as their king. To them also the new life will be that of the soul, not of the body: In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels.' But all that is of holy likeness to God will then be fully gratified. There is every reason to suppose that the diversities of the human intellect and tastes in each individual will still survive, and be perfected. For these special aptitudes and tendencies were bestowed by the Creator, as part of that limited likeness to Him in which we were formed. So amongst us now one man or woman loves the great thoughts and fit words of literature, another the perfection of art in painting or sculpture or music, another the infinite varieties of beauty in nature, another the search after the laws of the material world, another philosophy, another religious musing; not one of us all is the exact pattern of any other in tastes or capacities, yet every one has the gifts of God. It is impossible to doubt that all these diversities of ministration of the same Spirit will survive in the purified and exalted soul, and will reach to an infinitely higher There is boundless room for

stage of enjoyment.

each to develop more fully, and with reward more

1 Matt. xxii. 30.

CHAP. XII] NO MORE TEMPTATION

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ample than has been possible under the limitations of earth. For the weary there will be rest, and for the active work, but to every one something of the measure of the fulness of God. It is not idle speculation that raises such imaginations, it is recognition only of God's infinite goodness, and of that animating tendency which we can trace in all the directions of His work, that through every variety and every change He sees that all is very good.

Then let us remember that throughout all the occupations in which the souls of the blessed may be employed, there will no more be place for the temptations of evil. For they will have passed through these in their stay on earth, and by the grace of God they will have overcome them. Resisting the devil he will have fled from them for ever. Of the angels some fell, for they had not before been tried; of the redeemed none will ever fall, for they have been purified by trial and taught by experience.

Where will be this realm of perfect happiness? That is not told us. Nor need we care to know. Enough for us the assurance that it will be where Christ is, for what He will say is 'Come.' It will be where He bids us enter, because we too have