goods upon him, because he bore his trials patiently and thankfully, the Comforter Himself now soothing him and making up to him for past suffering by superabounding love and care, like a mother when she consoles the child whom she has pained for its own good,-you, on the other hand, have all pain. He is comforted, but you, justly, righteously, fairly, are tormented. Pleasure was your god while time lasted, and pain must be your portion for ever. For you have wasted all your goods till none are left. And besides, in addition to all this, over and above the many considerations which memory will suggest, when conscience spreads out as in a map before you your whole past career, besides the fact that you always refused to look beyond the grave, and to live for the world to come,-leaving all this out of consideration, and not looking to the propriety, and right, and justice of the matter,-there is a great gulf between us who loved God and you who loved yourself, a great river which has no bridge and across which there is no ferry, a vast and yawning chasm wider than that any wing can fly it, an immense ocean too great for any ship to navigate; so that there you are and there you must be, without hope of escape, without any remedy for the evil from which you now suffer, without a chance of deliverance, without a possibility of redemption. The laws of God have so decreed it, and so it must be.'

It is in terms like these that loving and fatherly Abraham addresses his lost son, who speaks to him with a tongue which was beginning to be set on fire of hell. With all kindness, but yet with all honesty and truthfulness, he tells him that there is no hope, no alleviation of his woe, no cooling of his heat, no

respite from his deep and inevitable misery. That is the teaching of Abraham and of Abraham's Divine Son, Who puts these words into the mouth of His happy ancestor, instructing him to teach us wholesome lessons out of the shadows of that hidden region which lies beyond death.

I. And now, in further considering the several truths which Abraham brings before us, let us first remark upon the manifest reality of this most sad spectacle. The Bible is the most real of all books. There is an earnestness and reality about its every word which we do not elsewhere meet with. But I am sure that you say that none of all its of truth and substance

will agree with me when I words have more appearance in them than these. We are dealing with a parable, no doubt, and as parables are not exact theology, so their language is not to be pressed into the proof of doctrine, and the bodies both of the lost sinner and of Lazarus are treated as though actually sharing in the soul's condition, although both were then mouldering into dust within the tomb; but the whole scene is so real, so entirely in accordance with possibility and fact, so like upon its earthly side with what we may continually see around us, and, even in what is more secret, is so palpable, so solid, so natural, so like what might be, so accordant with right and justice, and with the general teaching of God's book, that we can almost see the living reality before us and hear the words which fly across that yawning gulf. A soul alone was actually suffering, but where the soul of a man is, there the man as a whole may be said to be; and therefore the body is spoken of as already partaking in the soul's misery and despair. The picture is true to the life in every particular, although the

future is in some respects blended with the present, and some things are anticipated which in exact truth are only yet to be. The body, though for a time separated and turned to dust, is treated as inherent in the soul, to which it owes its life and from which it derives its character. There on earth we behold the man of wealth, rolling in the lap of luxury, and the beggar at his gate, neglected by his rich neighbour, clothed in rags, a dog beside him, licking with his tongue the painful and even loathsome sores. There we see the soft bed on which a dead man lies, the long and pompous funeral, the stream of mourners, the splendid mausoleum, the epitaph which sings the rich man's praise. And passing, as we may, under our Lord's guidance, from the visible world to that world which is unseen, we hear the rustling of those bright wings which carry the soul of Lazarus from his bed of straw to that fair Paradise where souls sleep and dream of coming bliss. And on the other hand, across a wide gulf, we see a soul on fire, a tongue scorched with inward burnings, a body standing upon the borders of that red lake in which it will ere long be plunged for ever. My brethren, this is not a scene only, not a mere spectacle; it is a fact. We seem to feel it all. So vivid is the picture, so true, so possible, so palpable, so substantial, so entirely actual. Abraham and Lazarus are feasting in Elysian dreams on a perpetual happiness. And the rich man, not because he was rich but because he was selfish, despairs at the advance of coming agony..

It is important to notice this reality, because in the present day there is a disposition to explain away such passages as this, and to emasculate them of all their body and meaning. We live in a highly civilized age,

which loves smoothness, and dislikes whatever appears harsh and unrefined. And, unfortunately, this love of softness and this hatred of what is rough, and stern, and disagreeable have been carried even into the province of religion, and have led some, from whom better things might well have been expected, to spiritualize, and evaporate, and explain away those old notions about hell and everlasting punishment which we learnt in the nursery, and which we have been wont to handle as solid and substantial realities, to be dreaded by thoughtful and foreseeing men. 'Oh,' they would say, 'God is too loving, too kind for this.' They would almost go so far as to say, 'He is too civil and too obliging to be capable of such strong feelings of moral indignation as to be angry with sin and to punish men for ever. And when He speaks in the Bible of damnation, and death eternal, and the fire that never shall be quenched, and the like, we are to understand such words as describing, under a figure, that the soul will suffer from selftorture and self-reproaches, and not literally, as though punishments were endless, as though the body and soul would together suffer, each its own misery, each its intolerable woe.' Now, such being the thoughts and opinions of some persons, it is worth while to observe on the reality and circumstantiality of this parable and of other parallel passages in Holy Writ. Here was a rich man, a polished man, a man of refinement and education, a man who lived in a civilized age, and this man is distinctly said to be in torments. Our Lord, describing his condition, and describing it too to men of education and refinement, taken out of the very class to which the rich man belonged, asserts that such was the case. His body was sharing in the

anguish of his soul. It could not get a little drop of water. "Thou art tormented," is the pitiful description of Father Abraham. "I am tormented in this flame," is his own harrowing picture of the anguish which he endured on this side of hell. God "is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" is our Lord's solemn affirmation upon another occasion. And it is only charity to tell the world that so it is. There is no want of charity in plainly announcing a sad and painful fact. The wishing that it were otherwise will not change the truth. Rather it is a want of charity to withhold it. If there are flames which burn for ever, if there be a worm which dies not, softness, and civilization, and refinement, and smooth-speaking will not alter the reality, and the truth must be spoken in all love and all plainness, however shocking it may be to civilized and polished ears.

That, then, is one thing which we may notice,the reality of the world unseen.

II. And then we may be led from this to perceive the terrible importance and reality of this present world in which we now are. What a world must this be if such is the state of things which follows it! We may argue back from the greatness of the future to the greatness of the present state. If we pass at death to "Abraham's bosom," or to the torments of "this flame," what a great world must this be in which we are walking now. We are on the borders of Heaven and hell. A step, a moment of time, a sudden accident,—the wreck of a ship, the fall of a stone, a breath of foul air, the bursting of an artery, any little circumstance, may transport us into that state in which Lazarus or the rich sinner now are. What a world must this be! Yes. It is a great world. It is the place