take upon us a new character. This idea is not only false in philosophy, but it is pernicious to good morals and religion. We die as we live. We go down to the grave with the characters, the habits, the desires, the feelings we have formed in life. A man may look with horror upon his past life, but that does not change it; a man may, in the terror of approaching death, abhor himself for his worldliness and sensuality, but that does not uproot worldliness and sensuality from his character. Let him be restored to health, and they will sway the same iron rule as before. We fall asleep at night just such beings as we have been through the day, and in the succeeding morning we wake up with characters unchanged. So shall we fall asleep when the night of death comes just such beings as we have been through life's day; and so also shall we awake in the resurrection morning, and such as we have lived we shall remain forever. 4. Death will come to us all. None can hope to escape. He is treading even now in our footsteps-when we sleep or when we wake! Noiseless, ceaseless is his advance! Infancy in its purity, youth in its beauty, manhood in its strength, and age in its honor find no exemption. Death is no respecter of persons. Opulence and poverty, power and feebleness, honor and its opposite, are all alike to him. He will come. His footfall shall, erelong, strike upon thine ear! Thou shalt shiver with icy coldness in the chilling atmosphere he breathes around thee! Thou, too, shalt go and join the countless hosts of his victims! thou shalt lie down in the dark and silent home of the dead! What thy hand findeth to do, do it, then, with thy might. Make life a stepping-stone to eternal bliss, the grave a triumphal archway to heaven. VIII. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE OF THE DEAD.* "But man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" JOB Xiv, 10. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." ECCL. xii, 7. WE have already seen that death is not an extinction of our being, and also that the soul has been made immortal by its Creator. The condition of the body after death we know to be one of organic decomposition; and when its elements have been dissolved dust and ashes only remain. But what is the condition of the soul in its separate state? This is a question that profoundly concerns us. Friends of ours, and dear ones strongly and tenderly allied to us, have already entered that state. We ourselves will soon be called to experience its realities. No wonder that the subject has excited universal and earnest attention in all ages. The visible bond that unites our friends to us is severed by death. Our spirit yearns for intercourse with them, but we find them not. We interrogate the grave, but it gives back no response. This anxiety concerning the departed is an intense and absorbing feeling: hence, in all ages, the efforts to penetrate the vail that conceals their condition from us. Under the influence of this sacred feeling thousands have sought, *In the revision of the chapters on the Intermediate State, the author has been largely assisted by the excellent work of Mr. Harbaugh on "Heaven, or The Sainted Dead"-a work worthy of heart-study. unwisely and by unholy agencies, to obtain some message from the dead, or to learn something concerning their condition. Necromancers, astrologers, spiritual mediums, and all kinds of impostors, have been consulted. Upon the basis of the same holy feeling Popery has erected the monstrous fraud of purgatory, and made it a source of revenue that once surpassed the revenues of the greatest commercial nations on the face of the globe. This painful uncertainty about the future also constitutes. one of the sources of that terror which death inspires. "The dread of something after death That undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveler returns, puzzles the will." Affrighted at the gloomy prospect, we stand upon the outer edge of our present being and survey the awful scene, the land of darkness and of shadows, just before us. "To die; to sleep To sleep? Perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub; Must give us pause." And here reason, unillumined by revelation, must ever pause; here it must stand appalled, bewildered, unnerved. Let us enter the privileged chamber where the saint of God, after a long and glorious warfare, struggles in the last dread conflict. His breathing is short and difficult, his pulse fluttering and failing; cold drops of sweat stand upon his marble brow; receding life leaves the pallor of death upon his countenance; his friends give utterance to their sorrow in the gush of falling tears, or in that anguish that is too deep for tears. Another step, and the transit of the cold Jordan of Death will be complete. Life is fast going out, but the beaming eye speaks of heavenly support. Just then he struggles for utterance, and is heard to exclaim, with faltering speech, "Having a desire to depart and be with Christ!" A moment more, and all is over! The weary wheels of life have ceased to move! all is still! The body is no longer the home of the spirit! it is motionless and dead! Where has that spirit gone? What is its state now? What now has become of that hope of passing through the agonies of death to the glorious presence of Christ, and to the blissful vision of heaven? Has it been realized, or has it been blighted forever? What saint of God, who has been sustained in a dying hour, has not fixed his eye upon this one glorious hope-that of dying and being with Christ? The body we know shall slumber till the resurrection; but shall the spirit, even in its separate state, fail to reach that heaven where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God? Let us, then, consider some of the facts, clearly deducible from the Bible, which throw light upon the condition of the soul after death and before the resurrection. I. THERE IS AN INTERMEDIATE STATE OF SOME KIND. This is clearly inferable from the fact that man is not represented as being judged, and receiving final adjudication of reward or punishment at the time of death, or even immediately after it. An intermediate period elapses. The resurrection of the body, its reunion with the soul, and the final judgment are events still remote. The Scriptures are clear and conclusive upon these points. Indeed, the subject is so often referred to in the Bible, and placed in such clear and strong light, and reiterated in so many forms, that we wonder how any one could ever have mistaken their import. At one time we hear "the resurrection of the last day" (John xi, 24) spoken of; at another the declaration, fall ing from the lips of Christ himself, that "the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." (John v, 28, 29.) Then, again, we hear our Savior saying to those who had made joyful the poor who could not recompense them, "Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." (Luke xiv, 14.) So St. Paul, when defending himself from the malignant charges made against him by the Jews, says, "So worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets; and have hope toward God. that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." (Acts xxiv, 15.) So, also, the same great apostle, (2 Tim. iv, 6-8,) when triumphing in the prospect of his speedy and glorious departure, after having fought the good fight, finished his course, kept the faith, still looks forward to "that day" when his peculiar and final reward should be received. St. Peter, also, (1 Peter i, 3-7,) though ecstatic in the "lively hope" of "an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled," contemplates it as "reserved in heaven," and "ready to be revealed in the last time." The reader can not fail to perceive that in all these passages there is not only no allusion made to death as being the time when the righteous should receive their final reward, and the wicked their final doom, but that we are pointed directly to the resurrection as the period when these great events should take place. The recompense of the righteous, the hope of the apostle, the crown of righteousness, the incorruptible and undefiled inheritance, all are reserved in heaven, ready to be revealed in the last time. To confirm this great truth still further, and to show how wide and comprehensive it is, let us listen again to St. Paul, (Rom. ii, 6-16,) while he declares that God "will |