"Send that begga.r t-0 serve me." To this he has r.ome; there is no thouO'ht of banquet or wines; only the tip of the erstwhile beggar's finger dipped in water a~d cooling the- tongue. A~,as ! the reply sounds t~e knell of all hope; mild, yet awful, it is, "Son, remember! What? The good tlnngs are exhausted. He had got all that he he.d livPd for; he had, in the bygone existence, a choice of thin)::s, and he had made his choice. His re"ar<l was drained. Lazarus had no portion in the world which we.s gone from sight. His election bad been outside of it. He has come to bis choice· he has entered on his reward. "He is comforted, but thou art tormented." For the ;est 1;_ven .~upposing the will to grant the request, it cannot be. "There is a great gulf nxed (ver. 26), and no passage may be between the upper and lower sides of the Hades of the dead. "Without God, and without hope." Is it a touch of still survivin"' humanity, or is it lest the misery be aggravated, that the petition .of Dives proceed; " Then send him where there is no gulf fixed; send him to my father's house, to my five brethren'' (vers. 27, 28). "They have Moses and the prophets" (ver. 29). "Nay, but if one went to them from the dead, they will repent" (ver. 30). "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though 'lUo rose from the dead" (ver. 31). CoNOLUSION. What a variety of" instruction in righteousness" is suggested by this parable! It invites thought in the direction of the most awful questions which connect themselves with human destiny. 1. As to the Hades-the condition, or place, of the dead. Dean Alford proposes a good rule of interpretation: "Though it is unnatural to suppose that our Lord would, in snch a parable, formally reveal any new truth respect- ing the fate of the dead, yet, in oonforming himself to the ordinary language current on these subjects, it is impossible to suppose that he whose essence is truth could have assumed as existing anything which does not exist. It would destroy the truth of our Lord's sayings if we could oonceive him to have used popular language which does not point at truth." What is that, then, in the figures, in the symbols employed, as to which we can say," Here is matter to be pondered and believed in"? Christ seems to put the stamp of his approval on these things. (1) That there is a conscious personal life after death. If this is not true, he would have.started from a falsehood. (2) That in this future life the identity of the self is preserved. All references imply this. The rich man lifts up his eyes. He sees Lazarus. He cries," Father Abraham!" He recalls his father's house and his five brethren. The I who was is the essential I for ever. (3) Th.at in the other world, the intermediate Hades, there is a separation between the evil and the good. We should not unduly strain the meaning of" the great gulf fixed." It is in Abraham's reply to a soul in which there is no sign of a turning to God ; which is as far from the faith of the patriarch as hell is from heaven. Between a soul thus godless, and the holy dead who are at rest in the Lord, there is e. great gulf fixed. But to press this int-0 an argument for a hell of endless torment is t-0 overstep the limits of parabolic interpretation. Yet, undoubtedly, a most solemn warning is conveyed-the warning that, in the world to oome, the distinctions of character are sharp, clear, and fixed; that then the real tendencies of mind are manifested, and find their natural affinities. As to the torment of this Dives in Hades, Luther bit on the right explana- tion when, in one of his sermons, he exclaims, " It is not corporeal. All is transacted in the conscience as he perceives that he has acted against the gospel. Nothing was actually spoken by him, but only internally felt." It is in view of this that we appre- hend the scope of the reoorded conversation. That is the outward form in which the emotion, the terror, of the conscience is portrayed. For, the retribution, whose fire is not quenched, is pointed to in the saying," Son, remember I" "It is·not nec~ssary to imagine anything beyond the stroke, stroke, stroke, ever repeating, of a scorp10n-con- 1,cience" recalling, revivifying all the past, the real character of actions being made evident, as with the force of a fire from whose heat nothing can be hidden. 'ro perceive the awful vengeance-taking on every soul of man that doeth evil, it is not necessary t-0 suppose more than the quickening of oonscience into full energy, than the continual accusation of the soul which forgets nothing, or finds all preserved, eternized for it, " when the roaring cataract of earthly things is still." 2. To return to the most pressing instruction of the parable ; life or death is _the choice before every_ one of. us. Death; if to any one comforts are more than duties, 1f the plane of the existence 1s e. merely worldly one-good things of one kind or another, and the kingdom of God orr, xvr.1-31.J THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. 75
left out of tho reckoning. The rich mnn is not condemned because of his riches; the pour man is not carried into Al>rnham's bosom because of his poverty. 'l'he riches were the temptation, and the soul had been m::istered; but one may be rich and yet simple in heart as e. child, not trusting in the riches, willing to distribute, and recog- nizing the stewardship to God for all. One may be poor, yet greedy, showing covetous- ness by the fierceness with which the sense of want is expressed, by the bitter envyin.~ of the more fortunate, by the utter absence of poverty of spirit. But," Son, remember!" if thou livest for good things, thou mayest have them ; but then, the greater the pros- perity, the greater the curse, the more fatal will the possession be to the true life-the life in God. B.v-and-by, for even the hardest and dullest there is an awakenment-to shame and everlasting contempt. Here, messages of love, the very pleading of the one risen from the dead may fail to reach the heart; there, where the ever-shifting scenes of this world disappear for ever, shall be heard the voice of conscience, speaking only for doom.