travelling so far to enter the
Bible heaven, and sing hymns with the menagerie of the Apocalypse?
Besides, a poor soul might lose its way, and dash about the
billion-billion-miled universe like a lunatic meteor.

It appears to us, also, that Mr. Harrald and the rest of Mr. Spurgeon's
friends have forgotten his own teaching. He thoroughly believed in the
bodily resurrection of the dead, and an ultimate day of judgment, when
bodv and soul would join together, and share a common fate for eternity.
How is this reconcileable with the notion that Spurgeon's soul "entered
heaven at 11.5" on Sunday evening, the thirty-first of January, 1892? Is
it credible that the good man went to the New Jerusalem, will stay there
in perfect felicity until the day of judgment, and will then have to
return to this world, rejoin his old bodv, and stand his trial at the
great assize, with the possibility of having to shift his quarters
afterwards? Would not this be extremely unjust, nay dreadfully cruel?
And even if Spurgeon, as one of the "elect," only left heaven for
form's sake at the day of judgment, to go through the farce of a
predetermined trial, would it not be a gratuitous worry to snatch him
away from unspeakable bliss to witness the trial of the human species,
and the damnation of at least nine-tenths of all that ever breathed?

As a matter of fact, the Christian Church has never been able to make
up its mind about the state or position of the soul immediately after
death. Only a few weeks ago we saw that Sir G. G. Stokes, unconsciously
following in the wake of divines like Archbishop Whately, holds the view
that the soul on leaving the body will lie in absolute unconsciousness
until the day when it has to wake up and stand in the dock. The
controversies on this subject are infinite, and all sorts of ideas
have been maintained, but nothing has been authoritatively decided. Mr.
Spurgeon's friends have simply _cut_ the Gordian knot; that is, they are
only dogmatising.

Laying all such subtle disputes aside, we should like Mr. Harrald to
tell us how he knows that Spurgeon has gone, is going, or ever will
go to heaven. What certainty can they have in the matter? Saint Paul
himself alluded to the possibility of his being "a castaway." How can an
inferior apostle be _sure_ of the kingdom of heaven?

Saint Paul taught predestination, and so did Spurgeon. According to
this doctrine, God knew beforehand the exact number of human beings
th