ish teaching and practice.

But it would be an act of disloyalty to the truth, and of cowardice into
the bargain, if we should abandon or minimize a truth because it has been
by some corrupted and perverted. Many a truth which has come down to us
may have lost some of the fresh lustre of its early purity. But all the
same, if it is the truth we cannot let it go. And that truth which tells
us something of the land, now beyond our sight, to which our dear ones
have already passed, which we shall each of us ourselves soon enter--the
truth which GOD has made known to us in Holy Scripture about this land,
we cannot afford to ignore and disregard. Nothing is easier than to
discredit such a truth by raising the cry of Popery. It is one of the
penalties which those have to pay who seek to disentangle the truth which
He has in His Church revealed from the untruth which has wrapped it
round.

But we must not shrink from this duty. In days when principles are
questioned, and almost all truths disputed, we must, at all hazards,
learn to keep our sight clear and our footing steady. For the Lord is
our Light and our Salvation. Whom then shall we fear? The Lord is the
strength of our life: of whom then shall we be afraid? {92}

IX.

"The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that
day."--2 TIM. I. 18.

We must now bring to a close the discussion which has been occupying our
attention: not that everything has been said that can or ought to be said
about it; for the interest of the subject grows with the handling of it,
as the various features of it open out to view.

So far we have been dealing with the condition of the faithful dead as it
affects themselves, with the mode of their own conscious life in the
Intermediate State, and with the nature of their own progressive advance
towards perfection. But there is another aspect of the question, about
which nothing has hitherto been said, I mean, their relation to us who
are still living on earth. A few words, and they must be very few, must
be said on this point. It is asked, for example, whether the veil has
completely shut out all knowledge of what is passing on earth from those
who have gone to their rest. No doubt, we can know very little about
this. But, at all events, we do not know enough to warrant us in saying
with any confidence that they are aware of nothing that is going on here.
It is true that, as has been said, the door