teners hung intent on the teaching of
the Christian missionaries who had just arrived. At last a grim
bearded old earl rose in his place. "Can this new religion," he asked,
"tell us of what happens after death? The life of man is like a
swallow flying through this lighted hall. It enters in at one door
from the darkness outside, and flitting through the light and warmth
passes through the farther door into the dark unknown beyond. Can this
new religion solve for us the mystery? What comes to men in the dark,
dim unknown?"

Perhaps he was thinking of his dead wife or his brave boy killed in
battle. The old earl's question is the question of humanity in all
ages gazing out into the darkness after its dead. The full answer can
only be had by dying. But a partial answer can be had now.

The Bible reveals to us that there are three stages of human existence:

1st. _The earthly stage_, where "I," the mysterious "I," live with a
body woven around me. The Bible hints that this stage is of untold
importance. In fact, all the future stages depend largely on how it is
lived. That is what makes this first stage so awfully important. It
is the formative time whose influence spreads out into eternity. In
this stage Acts make habits. Habits make character. Character makes
Destiny.

2nd. _The intermediate life_ BEFORE THE JUDGMENT, THE "NEAR HEREAFTER"
WHEN "I" LAY ASIDE THE BODY AT DEATH. THIS IS THE STAGE BEFORE THE
RESURRECTION WHICH IN OUR LORD'S TIME THE JEWS CALLED HADES, AND IN
WHICH THEY CALLED THE SPECIAL STATE OF THE BLEST PARADISE, ABRAM'S
BOSOM, UNDER THE THRONE, ETC.

3rd. And away after this _final stage_ the "Far Hereafter" in the "end
of the age," as our Lord says, where come the General Resurrection, the
Judgment of Men, the final stages of Heaven and Hell. _That stage has
not yet arrived in the history of humanity_.

In Part I of this book we are only concerned with the Intermediate
Life, the life of the near Hereafter which comes after Death and before
the Judgment. We are to study what can be known about it.

With educated people it should not be necessary to combat the foolish
popular notion that at death men pass into their final destiny--Heaven
or Hell--and then perhaps thousands of years afterwards come back to be
judged as to that final destiny! To state such a belief should be
enough to refute it. Those who hold it "do err not knowing the
Scriptures." For the Scriptures have no