te. It is on the other side what it was on this
side. Death,--the crisis and shock of death,--makes no change, no other
change than this, that it strips off the outer clothing which enveloped
the soul. It leaves the soul the same, no better, no worse. This is
what is implied in the personal identity of the soul. It means the
continuity of consciousness, and therefore continuity of character.

Do we cling to some vague and fanciful expectation that the mere act of
dying, so to call it, will itself work a great change upon the soul, will
blot out our sins, will clear away our imperfections, will in an instant
heal the wounds and scars, which evil habits, long inured in us, have
wrought upon the soul? It will do nothing of the sort. We shall be no
better, no holier on the other side than we were on this, no more fitted
for heaven than when we died. If this be so,--and, so far as we can see,
it must be so,--how much does it behove us to fear greatly the peril we
incur by a careless and GOD-forgetting life! "Israel doth not know,"
said the prophet, "My people doth not consider." {47} That was the pity
of it. It was the thoughtlessness, and the ignorance which came of it,
that ruined the nation.

Oh! that in life we would look things in the face more steadily! Would
that we were ready to take heed how surely we are, day by day, shaping
and moulding our character for good or for evil, a character which no
shock of dissolution will affect, which will be ours when the crisis
comes to end our probation here, and to usher us, as we are and have
become, into that unseen life beyond!

V.

"Being confident of this very thing, that He which began a good work
in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ."--PHIL. I. 6
(_R.V._)

The Intermediate Life is not a state of sleep, but a waiting time. But
is it a time of mere waiting, and of unemployed quiescence? This would
be no better than sleep. There must be a reason for the waiting. And
what other reason can there be than that, during it, there is something
to be done which can only be done then? S. Paul speaks, in the text, of
work which he is confident will be carried on till it is brought to
completion on the Day of Judgment. What is this work? We have seen that
the Scriptural conception of the happiness of heaven is that it consists
in the sight of GOD, the Beatific Vision. But there can enter the
heavenly city nothing that defileth, n