.

VI.

"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 ground is now cleared for an answer to the question,--How is the
purification of the soul effected in the Intermediate Life, and what is
the nature of the process? We have seen, 1st, that this waiting time is
not an idle time, but a time when something has to be done which can only
be done then; 2nd, that what has to be done then is the work of cleansing
and purifying the soul, that it may be perfected for the Beatific Vision
in heaven; 3rd, that the souls of those who die in grace do yet, although
fully pardoned, retain frailties of character, the consequences of former
sins; and, 4th, that dying in itself has no cleansing virtue whatever.
What, then, are the conditions on which we may rely as grounds for
legitimate inferences?

1. First, then, memory survives death. In the narrative to which we
have had occasion to refer more than once, Abraham is spoken of as
bidding the rich man to remember. "Son, remember, that thou in thy
lifetime receivedst thy good things." The survival of memory is involved
in the soul's consciousness of its own existence. And to be conscious of
our own existence is to be conscious that we are still the same persons
that we were. Therefore we must be able to remember each successive
moment what and who we were in the moment previous: so that the
continuance of life involves the continuance of the consciousness that it
is ourselves that live. And this is memory. Bishop Butler, therefore,
says, "There is no reason for supposing that the exercise of our present
powers of reflection is even suspended by the act of dying."

But if we grant this, we may go further. What is it which makes memory
in this life so imperfect? What is it but the obtrusive hindrance of the
body? The body is at the mercy of the disturbing assaults of present
impressions. Through ear, and eye, and touch external objects invade the
mind, and dispel and distract fixed and steadfast retrospect. The
present blots out the past. When we look back, scenes, and events, and
words, and names fade from our memory, and are dimmed by the haze of
distance. The past is smothered by what has happened since. Only with a
supreme effort, only in solitude, and then only imperfectly, can we
recall what has gone by. But there, in the Intermediate State,