and to retribution. But the judgments and retributions of eternity are for the same object as the education of time: they are to complete the work left unfinished here. In God's house above are many mansions, suited to every one's condition. Each will find the place where he belongs; each will find the discipline which he needs. Judas went to his place, the place which he needed, where it was best for him to go; and the Apostle Paul went to his place, the place best suited for him. The result of life with one man has fitted him for glory and honor; another is only fitted for outer darkness: but each will have what is best for him. We may throw ourselves away; but God will not throw us away. We belong to him still; and he "gathers up the fragments which remain, that nothing be lost." In order to become pure, we may need sharp suffering; and then God will not hesitate to inflict it. In the other life, as in this, he will chasten us, not for his pleasure, but for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. It is thus that God's love for the soul, and its worth, appear eminently, in that he will not let us destroy ourselves. When we pass into the other world, those who are ready, and have on the weddinggarment, will go in to the supper. They will find themselves in a more exalted state of being, where the faculties of the body are exalted and spiritualized, and the powers of the soul are heightened; where a higher truth, a nobler beauty, a larger love, feed the immortal faculties with a divine nourishment; where in our imperfect knowledge will be swallowed up. larger insight; and communion with great souls, in an atmosphere of love, shall quicken us for endless. progress. Then faith, hope, and love will abide,faith leading to sight, hope urging to progress, and love enabling us to work with Christ for the redemption of the race. "All souls are MINE." Blessed declaration of the God-inspired Ezekiel ! All souls of the great and the humble, the rich and the poor, the wise and the ignorant, the king and the slave, the pure child and the abandoned woman, the soul of St. John and the soul of Judas Iscariot, all belong to God. He will take care of what is his: he will leave no child orphaned. Those who are trodden down and forsaken in this world, he watches their sorrowful lives, and will cause them to bring forth fruit at last. The hardened and selfish worldling, who mocks at the higher law, and knows no rule but his own miserable rule of temporal expediency, —God will teach him yet to know and revere immortal truth and heavenly virtue. - Thus does God love all souls with a universal, unwearied, untired affection; thus did Christ. love all souls, gathering around him, by his deep interest in that vital centre of life, the publicans, Pharisees, and sinners, the pious and the profane. And thus, if we are Christians, we shall love all souls; calling no man common or unclean; believing in the brotherhood and sisterhood of the race; finding something good in every one, a vital seed of nobleness in the most deadened bosom; and, in thus loving other souls, our own souls will be blessed. While we forget ourselves, God will remember us; while we seek to save others, we, too, shall be safe. Let us rejoice, friends, in these great hopes. Let us bless God for his creating, educating, and saving love. Let us rejoice that the lost souls-lost to earth, lost to virtue, lost to human uses here — are not lost to God; that he still holds them in his hand. Let us rejoice that those who will not be led to him. by blessings and joy shall be led to him by terror, pain, and awful suffering. Let us rejoice that the glory of heaven and the lurid fires of hell shall both serve God, both work together for God. Let us rejoice in the great communion of souls; saints and sinners, one great family, to be led by Christ to his Father. And let the humble ones of earth, forgotten by men, know that they are remembered by God,the nameless martyrs, the uncelebrated lives, all recorded in the Great Book above. Where sleep they? Woods and sounding waves Are silent of those hidden graves. Yet what if no light footstep there In pilgrim love and awe repair? 2 Cor. vi. 2: "Now IS THE ACCEPTED TIME; NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION." IT is a distinction of man to live in the past and the future no less than in the present. The discourse of reason is to look before and after. Animals, indeed, have memory and hope. When a horse whinnies at noon, it shows both memory of the past, and hope as regards the future. He remembers that he has been fed before at that time; and he is expecting to be fed again. But man can live in the past and the future. He can project his soul backward or forward, and dwell in memory or hope, till the present hour becomes nothing to him. To illustrate this at length would be interesting, but is not necessary, and would take a whole sermon. Pass, therefore, to a second observation. Though it is a distinction of man to be able to live in the past and future, this is not his highest or best condition. To let the past and future pour their consenting streams into his present life is better than to carry his life into the past or the future. This proposition I proceed to explain. The lowest condition of man is that in which he is wholly immersed in the present. This implies the absence of all culture. The man's soul is enslaved by immediate circumstances, imprisoned in this square foot of space, in these sixty seconds of time. The moment that one begins to reflect or to imagine, he goes backward and forward, and so escapes from the weight of the present. The moment culture begins, we cease to be the slaves of this Now. The child studying geography, history, grammar, arithmetic, already escapes somewhat from the limitation of the present moment. He is away into Europe, or into the time of Alexander, or into the still more remote abstractions of pure reason. The second condition of man is that in which he lives in the past or future, or alternately in past, present, and future. It is a higher state than the first, but not the highest. To escape from the present is better than to be its slave, but not so good as to be its master. Some people escape from the present by revery. They go into Dreamland or Fairyland, and have a good time there; build castles in the air, castles in Spain. This gives to them a certain feebleness of character, incapacitates them for work, weakens their moral power. Some people lead a double life, putting only half their thought into their action; having another world of favorite imagination where the other half goes. So many persons walk |