Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-14
BEYOND THE GRAVE
The Soul Of the Faithful Grows in
Grace Until Judgment Day.
THERE Is A PERIOD OF WAITING
In Which It Has Chance to Cultivate the
Good That Is in It.
BELIEF IN AN INTERMEDIATE STATE
lwRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH

| III LIS UOSOm.
We are not told very much in the Bible
about the world beyond the grave. We are
told very distinctly that there is a world
beyond the grave. The central saint and
hero of the Bible is the One who, being
dead, came back alive out of the grave to
make that absolutely sure. After death is
life But where? and how?
These ore the questions which we cannot
help asking But we get no satisfying an
swers. The only answers which approach
satisfaction are to be read in the pages of
the Bible. Everything else, all religion,
| all poetry, all philosophy beside, is only
| guess-work. These Bible men are the great
| spiritual masters. God made them His
messengers in the realm of spiritual truth.
| If anybody can tell us, these men can, to
whom God spoke. But they tell US very
little.
Partly, perhaps, because we do not need
| to know. The essential purpose of the
Bible in its relation to human life is to
| teach US how to live to-day. When to-mor-
| row comes, when the Tomorrow of DEATH
| comes, and we need new light along an I'M
known path, we will get it; God will give
| it. But for the presentwe can see the daily
way plain enough to walk in it. And more
than that we do not need to know. Any
how, much more than that God has not
| told u.s.
And perhaps, also, we get no adequate
answers to our questions because we could
not understand the answers if we got them.
Death the Beginning sf knowledge.
Thatis one of the blessings of death, that
| it is the beginning of knowledge. No
doubt the mysteries of the other side of life
L. -
| the language of the higher mathematics is
sentences in which the truths of the other
world are stated in the Bible, are set in
| symbols. White thrones, and open books,
and pearly gates, and golden streets-these
are but the faint shadows of great mysteries
The world beyond is still the undiscovered
country"
But we want to know something about
that other life. Part of our family lives on
the further side of those celestial bounda-
ries. We cannot help looking with long
ing and wondering eyes in that direction,
and asking questions. And thus every
word of the great spiritual masters which
bears upon this hidden matter has su-
preme interest for us. Take this parable of
the rich man and Lazarus. 1t was not
spoken as revelation Of, the life to come.
1t was directed straight and plain against
certain evils of the life which now is
First Five Minutes After Death.
Our Lord was thinking of avaricious, sell
fish and unbrOtherly Pharisees These peo-
pie loved money more than they loved men.
So long as they were attired in purple and
fine linen, 1t mattered not how MANY beg
gars full of sores lay in the street without.
And Christ wanted to show them what
great surprise the "first five minutes after
death" would bring them. That was why
He told this story. But that is not the
most interesting thing about it to u.s. The
gates are open into the world beyond, and
we look through That is what we care for
most.
And that is what I want to speak about
this morning, about what happens after death
SO far as we can guess it out, or spell it out,
here and in other places iE the Bible. And
by ''after death" mean Immediately
after death. That, it is plain, is the point
of time in the parable The general -iudg-
ment at the last day, and the final amen to
all things earthly, has not come yet. We
are down here on this familiar planet, we
and the rich mans brothers, hurrying about
in the pursuit of our daily business, intent
on getting all the money and all the pleas
'ure we can, not thinking very much about
things spiritual and eternal, paying small
heed to Moses and the prophets; and over
there in the world unseen is being recited
this
Singular and Significant Dialogue.
They are both newcomers, the rich man
and Lazarus, dead but day, only day old
in the new life The condition of things
which we are here given sight of is imme-
diately after death. Now, one of the ques-
tions which we would like to have answered
about the first day after death is this:
Where does the soul go? Does the soul of
the saint 60 straight into heaven? does the
soul of the sinner go straight into hell? or
do they both wait in some general place of
departed spirits until the general judgment?
Is there an intermediate state?
We begin to get an answer to this ques-
tion when we discover in this parable that
the rich man and Lazarus alike are both in
hell. The distinction between the two is
that the rich man is in torments, while
Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom; and that
deep cleft of separation divides the one from
the other. The rich man wakes up in hell,
and behold the flames are around him, while
Abraham's arms are around Lazarus. But
they are both in hell. Then we remember
that our Lord Himself, after His death upon
the cross, descended into hell. And that in
the estimation of ST. Peter there was moth
wonder was not that He descended into hell,
but that He came out again. To go into hell
seems to have been accounted for BY the
apostle to be
The Natural Course Of Things
with every human being. David had said
in one of his psalms that his soul would not
be left in hell, but his soul was left in hell,
and consequently he must have been think
nf alol- II IL =. e NJ.
The purpose of the creed is not to set forth
a strange fact in the experience of Christ
when he declares that He descended into
hell That statement is not to be classed
with the divine side of His work, like the
phrase which follows: ''The third day He
rose again from the dead" but rather with
the ordinary, natural and human condition
of His life and death, like the phrase which
precedes it, 'He was buried"
The purpose is to declare the perfect and
unreserved reality of Christ's death. He
died and His body was buried and His soul
went into hell-just like anybody else's
body and soul. But ellis soul was not left
in hell, neither did His flesh see corrup-
tion." That was the only strange and Won
derful thing about it.
Evidently this is not the hell of ordin-
ary language. And the creed makes that
please, the phrase of the creed which says
''He descended into hell,' and may substi-
tute therefor the words "He went into the
place of departed spirits" which words are
Accounted by the Church
to have the same Specification. So that
hell, in this meaning Of it, is defined by the
church to be the place of departed spirits
Moreover, in the original languages of the
Bible, when we go to them to find the word