A man's love is his life, and if there is a life beyond the grave, there must be an abode of woe to be the receptacle of those who have lived only in and for evil. To admit the possibility of an entire change of character in the next world tends to foster habits of immorality here, and induces the deferring of the day of repentance. But the Word teaches us that the present life is the season of repentance, and that a time will come when the door will be closed against us, if we neglect to procure for ourselves the oil of love ere the midnight cry that calls us from earth summon us to our home. It seems to us that the whole tenor of Bible teaching is against the idea of repentance in the life to come, and thus its tendency is to promote virtue on earth. That teaching which most tends to repress vice and encourage virtue must be the most truthful, because the most Godlike; and for the view of the lot of the wicked which we have striven to lay before you to-night we lay this claim.
Blend the living with the dead;
Soon will you and I be lying
Each within his narrow bed.
Soon our souls to God who gave them
Will have sped their rapid flight;
Able now by grace to save them,
Oh, that while we can we might.
Jesu, Infinite Redeemer,
Maker of this mighty frame,
Teach, O teach us to remember
What we are, and whence we came;
Whence we came, and whither wending.
