e. Let us, brethren, hearken to some of the
lessons which come to us with a solemn sound from the world beyond the
grave. In the first place, let us learn that being respectable is not
a passport to Heaven. No doubt the rich man of the parable was very
respectable. If he had lived in these days, and there are many of his
family with us now, he would have worn glossy broadcloth instead of
purple, and have held a responsible position in his town and parish.
He would have gone to church sometimes, and have been very severe with
the outcasts of the gutter and the back slums. And yet we find that
all this outward respectability, these salutations in the market place,
were no passport to Heaven. The man lived for himself--he was a lover
of himself. He had no love for his brother whom he had seen, ay, every
day, lying at his gate; and so he could have no love for God whom he
had not seen. The sin of Dives, remember, was not that he was rich, it
was that he was utterly selfish and worldly. A poor man may be just as
sinful. The man who makes a god of his body and its pleasures, the man
who makes a god of his work or his science, or of anything save the
Lord God Almighty, the man who lives for himself and does nothing for
the good of others, be he rich or poor, is in the same class with Dives
in the parable. Next, there comes a thought of comfort from the story
of the beggar Lazarus. There was no virtue in his being poor--but he
loved his God, and he bore his sorrows patiently, and verily he had his
reward. Jesus tells us that blessed are they that mourn, for they
shall be comforted; that all who have borne hunger and thirst, and
persecution, or loss of friends for His sake, shall hereafter have a
great reward. You, my brethren, who are any ways afflicted or
distressed, who have to bear sickness or poverty, who have few friends
and few prospects in this world, and yet are patient, and trustful, and
believing, look beyond the veil, and be sure that there, if not here,
you shall have your good things--such good things as pass man's
understanding.

Again, we learn that death does not deprive us of memory. One of old
said wisely that they who cross the sea change their sky, but not their
mind, and that no exile ever yet fled from himself; and even after we
have exchanged this world for the unseen world to come, we do not
escape ourselves, our thoughts and memories are with us. The rich man
was bidden to remember his p