is point of view, and been fairly
successful in stilling conscience. That still, small voice doubtless
spoke pretty sharply at first, but after a while it rarely troubled
him, and in the end it spoke not at all. He may, in a way, have
enjoyed life and the beauties of nature. He has seen the fresh leaves
come and go, but he forgot the moral, that he himself was but a leaf,
and that, as they all dropped to earth to make more soil, his ashes
must also return to the ground. But his soul, friends and brethren,
what becomes of that? Ah! it is the study of this question that
moistens our eyes with tears. No evil man is really happy here, and
what must be his suffering in the cold, cold land of spirits? No
slumber or forgetfulness can ease his lot in hades, and after his
condemnation at the last judgment he must forever face the unsoftened
realities of eternity. No evil thing or thought can find lodgment in
heaven. If it could, heaven would not be a happy place; neither can
any man improve in the abyss of hell. As the horizon gradually
darkens, and this soul recedes from God, the time spent in the flesh
must come to seem the most infinitesimal moment, more evanescent than
the tick of a clock. It seems dreadful that for such short misdoings a
soul should suffer so long, but no man can be saved in spite of
himself. He had the opportunities--and the knowledge of this must give
a soul the most acute pang.

"In Revelation, xx, 6, we find these words, 'Blessed and holy is he
that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath
no power.' I have often asked myself, May not this mean that those
with a bad record in the general resurrection after a time cease to
exist, since all suffer one death at the close of their period here?

"This is somewhat suggested by Proverbs, xii, 28. 'In the way of
righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.'
This might limit the everlasting damnation, so often repeated
elsewhere, to the lives of the condemned, since to them, in a sense, it
would be everlasting.

"Let us now turn to the bright picture--the soul that has weathered the
storms of life and has reached the haven of rest. The struggles,
temptations, and trials overcome, have done their work of refining with
a rapidity that could not have been equalled in any other way, and
though, perhaps, very imperfect still, the journey is ever on. The
reward is tenfold, yet in proportion to what t