e tender blessed pain of
God's purification, the pain of self-reproach, the pain that thou hast
sinned,

"The shame of self and pity for thy Lord
That One so sweet should e'er have placed Himself
At disadvantage such, as to be used
So vilely by a being vile as thee."

But what a sweet and wholesome pain, mingled with the sense of safety
and peace and hope--mingled with deep joy and boundless adoring
gratitude and love as we see the stain of the old sins steadily being
effaced and look forward to the sure bliss of Heaven in the future!
Surely by means of such pain and gratitude and adoring love God makes
sinful souls fit for Heaven.

CHAPTER X

PROBATION IN THIS LIFE

Up to this we have been ignoring a large proportion of the inhabitants
of the Unseen Land. To avoid misunderstanding we have kept in view
those only of whom we had hope that they died in the fear and love of
God. But there is no evading the thought that between these and the
utterly reprobate, there are multitudes of Christian and heathen in
that Unseen Life today who belong to neither class, mixed characters in
all varying degrees of good or evil. Of many of them it could be said
that those who knew them best saw much that was good and lovable in
them. But it could not be said that they had consciously and
definitely chosen for Christ.

They must form the majority of those to-day in the Unseen Land.
Therefore one cannot help wondering about them. One day death overtook
them. The thought of them comes forcibly when some morning the
newspapers startle us with the story of a terrible battle or railway
smash or shipwreck or conflagration in which hundreds have passed out
of life in a moment and the horror of the catastrophe is deepened by
the thought that they have been called away suddenly unprepared.

What of their position in the Intermediate Life? Our Christian charity
prompts us to hope the best for them. But are we justified in hoping?
It is impossible for thoughtful, sympathetic men to evade that
question. It is cowardly to evade it. At any rate a treatise on the
Intermediate Life can hardly pass over altogether the thought of the
majority of its inhabitants and it cannot be wrong for us humbly and
reverently to think about them.

Section 2

I have already pointed out the solemn responsibility of this earth life
in which acts make habits and habits make character and character makes
destiny. I am about to point