ing nominally a glorious immortality, but one that is ingeniously exhausted of the very attribute which alone could bring it within the circle of human interests,-giving to our hearers but a dry gilded husk of immortality, while we secretly have recourse to the kernel for our own private solace.

At the risk of seeming to repeat what we have already said, we would remark that, whenever the Scriptures speak of our future life as a matter of interest to us, its connexion with the present, so far as is requisite to such interest, must, of course, have been in the mind of the writers. No person, inspired or uninspired, can so much as refer to another state of existence, we mean as an object of our personal hope or felicitation, without recognizing, for the instant, some conscious relation between it and ourselves. Now, take such passages as the following "I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning:ing them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope;" "wherefore, comfort one another with these words;" "In my Father's house are many mansions,.... I go to prepare a place for you,"—as if it were a matter of interest to them; "For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven;""We are confident and willing rather to to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord;" "Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better;" That "we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us, which entereth into that within the veil, whither Jesus, our forerunner, hath for us entered,". but it would be an impracticable attempt to quote the numerous passages that recognize the immortal state as a prospect full of present hope and comfort to ourselves. And this was enough for the unsophisticated believer. It was not needful, after this, to state in formal terms, what was implied by the very tone of the language, and by the laws of human thought, that he should know himself, in the fruition of his blessedness, to be the same person who had hoped for it. We think the Scriptures do not even say, in just these words, that Christ, or his apostles, or any body else, ever knew, on one day, that they were the same persons who lived the day before. What

need was there of gravely laying down so bald a truism? -though, on second thought, it would not be altogether inconceivable that, in order to counteract the extravagant liberties which are now so often taken with the Gospelnarrative, a no less extravagant rule might be hastily proposed, that we must admit nothing to have occurred in the times of the New Testament, except what is there expressly recorded in formal statements. And were such a rule to be once received, what a host of needless questions, on the men and things of that age, would at length come up, corresponding to the questions on the subject we are now considering! It might then become expedient to make it out, as well as we could, that people had the same kind of consciousness, in those times, as now, and to show the absurdity of ignoring the fact.

We cannot reasonably expect the Scriptures to state many of the particulars which are naturally implied in the very fact of such a future existence as they assert. Nevertheless, it so happens that they do incidentally mention, in formal terms, the vast superiority of our knowledge hereafter, over all that we can here attain to. They speak of it, however, as a point already well enough understood, adverting to it only for the purpose of illustrating another topic. Thus, when St. Paul expatiates on the excellence of Charity, he takes occasion to follow it into the future state, and observes that Charity will abide forever, outliving prophecy, the gift of tongues, and even our present imperfect degree of knowledge. "For," adds he, "we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Cor. xiii. 9-12.) Even in the present state, where we only "see through a glass darkly," we still have some knowledge of the past. Shall we have as much hereafter? In an imperfect degree, we know what men have been doing, before our time, for thousands of years, and Geology is opening to us a dim insight into the stupendous changes of a period nearly lost in the past eternity. Shall we have as wide and clear a circle of knowledge, "when that which is perfect is come?" St. Paul has answered these

questions. If we shall, hereafter, "see face to face," and "know as we are known;" if our present imperfect knowledge shall then be swallowed up in certainty, there will be no cloud of ignorance, nor of forgetfulness, to rest upon our vision. It will be like the full day risen upon the prospect we had "darkly" viewed under the shade of night. The life we are now leading, the scenes through which we are now passing, alternately in sin, shame, and penitence, in faith and purity, in suffering and in joy, will lie out all plain in the retrospect from those eternal heights. And this is what the universal longing for immortality demands. Nothing short of this will satisfy the "earnest expectation " which God inspired in his creatures when he made them "subject to hope."

Again: the life in which Christ appeared, after death, has been usually regarded by Christians as the example of ours; not, perhaps, in all its particulars and developements, but at least in its essential properties. He "brought our immortality to light," by setting the fact itself before. us, in his own person. Now, what kind of a future existence did he thus demonstrate to men? Was it one without consciousness of the former mortal life? By no means. He still knew himself as Jesus of Nazareth. The personal career he had finished on earth, the part he had acted, the scenes he had witnessed, what he had said to his disciples, who they were, what they had done, their peculiar relation to him,-all was clear in his memory; as we find by his allusions to the past. And if his immortality was, in any important respect, an example of ours, the question before us is answered by the most direct and demonstrative of all the teachings of the Christian Revelation. For whatsoever we may think as to a perfect resemblance between him and ourselves hereafter, there is, at the least, so fundamental a difference, in kind, between a future state of total oblivion, and such a future state as he exemplified, that the one can never represent the other, nor "bring it to light."

In short, it appears to us that if we read the Scriptures in the light of practical common-sense, and not with an effort at hypercritical ignoring, they will leave us in no doubt what their doctrine is on this subject.

Included within the general quesiton of our future re

in

membrance, and logically determined by it, is a subordinate question, that we sometimes hear asked, namely, Shall we recognize each other hereafter? As this point is one of peculiar interest to the affections, especially in seasons of bereavement, we may be justified in giving it a distinct consideration, though it seems to be sufficiently resolved by the argument we have just closed. Shall we hereafter, know our present relatives and acquaintances? We see not how there can be any doubt of it, with Christians, when they consider that the future state, which the gospel reveals, is one in which that very knowledge, or recognition, was actually demonstrated in the instance of Christ. He knew his former friends, and his former enemies; calling the one class by their names, and referring to the sufferings which the other class had inflicted upon him. We may also observe, that the view which St. Paul gives, appears to leave no room for uncertainty on this point, since we shall see, not as now "through a glass darkly," but "face to face;" we shall know, not as now part" only, but "even as we ourselves shall be known." Again: in order to comfort the Thessalonians on the death of their friends, so that they might 66 sorrow not even as others who have no hope," he assures them that " we who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them, in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord,"—where the language is evidently pervaded by the thought that they were of course to know each other. Just imagine him to have held, on the contrary, that this promised meeting would be without any mutual recognition, and even in total oblivion of their own former selves; and we cannot but see a flagrant absurdity in presenting it as the ground of solace. It would be no comfort surely, it would be a sad and shocking thing, to know that we shall meet hereafter as we may have seen some very aged persons meet, in extreme dotage, after they had lost all power of recollecting even their nearest relatives, and the past had become an_indistinguishable blank to them.

If we turn and look into the nature of the case, we shall find it very difficult to conceive how we can hereafter know even ourselves, without knowing our kindred and intimate connexions, who have grown up with us, and

Our families,

become a part of our being, as it were. friends, and acquaintances have so large a share in almost every thing we do, or think of, in this life, that a cloud of oblivion, broad enough to cover them, must cover the whole. Directly or indirectly, they pervade all the processes of our earthly existence, and are woven in, like a woof, throughout the entire web. We are dependent on them, and they on us. If we labor, or plan an enterprise, they enter more or less into our views in the undertaking. If we study, or act, it is with some reference to them; if we seek amusement, it is in their company, or partly for their sakes; if we suffer or enjoy, they are participators. We remember them years after they are dead, and recall their character, their temper, their thoughts,-all that identified them to us,-as freshly as in the hour we lost them. If the complicate part which they form of our mortal state were struck out of our cognizance, to-day, we should not know the world we live in; we should not know a single street of the village in which we were brought up, and which is everywhere so inseparably associated with their presence and agency, or at least with the thought of them. More than three-fourths of all that now constitutes our little world of ideas, interests, affections, cares, and pursuits, would be gone; as if the continent were sunk around us, leaving only a few wrecks to stand up in the abyss, and them so shattered and disarranged as never to be recognized amid the ruin. To forget that we ever had parents, and brothers and sisters, and companions, and children, and other social relations, would be to forget that we ever had an existence here. In that case, St. Paul ought not to have said, "Now, we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now we know in part, but then shall we know even as we ourselves are known." Instead of this, he should have said, 'Then shall we see, if we see at all, through a glass very darkly indeed; now, we do know in part, but then we shall hardly know any thing.'

III. There is another question that naturally affects the interest with which men regard the prospect of universal salvation, or of a blessed immortality. Shall we enter on the future life at death? or, will there first be a suspension of our existence, for thousands of years? We do