ur private opinion to this immense weight of learning,
sanctity and authority? Would it not be impiety in you to stand aside with
sealed lips while the Christian world is sending up an unceasing _De
profundis_ for departed brethren? Would it not be cold and heartless in
you not to pray for your deceased friends, on account of prejudices which
have no grounds in Scripture, tradition or reason itself?

If a brother leaves you to cross the broad Atlantic, religion and
affection prompt you to pray for him during his absence. And if the same
brother crosses the narrow sea of death to pass to the shores of eternity,
why not pray for him then also? When he crosses the Atlantic his soul,
imprisoned in the flesh, is absent from you; when he passes the sea of
death his soul, released from the flesh, has gone from you. What
difference does this make with regard to the duty of your intercession?
For what is death? A mere separation of body and soul. The body, indeed,
dies, but the soul "lives and moves and has its being." It continues after
death, as before, to think, to remember, to love. And do not God's
dominion and mercy extend over that soul beyond the grave as well as as
this side of it? Who shall place the limits to God's empire and say to
Him: "Thus far Thou shalt go and no farther?" Two thousand years after
Abraham's death our Lord said: "I _am_ the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and
of Jacob. He _is_ not the God of the dead, but of the living."(296)

If, then, it is profitable for you to pray for your brother in the flesh,
why should it be useless for you to pray for him out of the flesh? For
while he was living you prayed not for his body, but for his soul.

If this brother of yours dies with some slight stains upon his soul, a sin
of impatience, for instance, or an idle word, is he fit to enter heaven
with these blemishes upon his soul? No; the sanctity of God forbids it,
for "nothing defiled shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven."(297) Will you
consign him, for these minor transgressions, to eternal torments with
adulterers and murderers? No; the justice and mercy of God forbid it.
Therefore, your common sense demands a middle place of expiation for the
purgation of the soul before it is worthy of enjoying the companionship of
God and His Saints.

God "will render to every man according to his works,"--to the pure and
unsullied everlasting bliss; to the reprobate eternal damnation; to souls
stained with minor faults a place o