e over five
cities. Thy pound has gained ten, I will set thee over ten cities. I
will give thee a larger and nobler work hereafter." Is not that an
incentive to stir one's blood? The more I grow in love, in
unselfishness, in knowledge of God, in righteousness of life, the more
use I shall be to my dear Lord and to my brethren for ever.

CHAPTER XII

CONCLUSION

So we close our thoughts about the NEAR HEREAFTER, the life immediately
after death. The FAR Hereafter--the great mystery of Judgment and Hell
and Heaven belongs to a later section. Here we have been dealing only
with the life going on to-day in the Unseen--side by side with our
present life.

Ah! that wonderful Paradise land--that wonderful Church of God in the
Unseen--with its vast numbers, with its enthusiastic love, with all its
grand leaders who have been trained on earth. WE AND THEY together
form the great continuous Church of God. We are all ONE LONG
PROCESSION; they at the head in the Unseen. What a life it is! What a
work it has!

Said I not well it was a Gospel of the Hereafter, a good news of God!
It will make you solemn as you feel that character passes on unchanged.
That is good; but it will do more. It will take away the sting and the
horror of death. It is not the pain of dying that makes that horror
when I come to die. After all, men bear far more pain without
flinching. It is not merely the parting for the present with those I
love. We have constantly to do that when they go to other lands
without breaking our hearts about it. It is not even any doubt about a
future Resurrection at the Second Advent. I may believe that, and yet
get little comfort from it. That Advent seems so far away. It may be
next week; but it may be 5,000 years hence, and meantime what of my
life? Sleep, unconsciousness, darkness? What? No wonder I should
shrink from that mysterious unknown.

But teach me the ancient Scriptural doctrine of the PARADISE life as it
appears in the Bible. Teach me that in the hour after death I shall
pass into the Unseen with myself, with my full life, my feelings, my
character, my individuality, and in that solemn hour death will lose
its horror. Is not that a Gospel?

In the awful days of bereavement it will bring God's peace, and it will
bring elevation of character. "Where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also."

"He is not dead, the child of your affection,
But gone into that school