less hell. I may, in certain moods of my mind here upon
earth, query whether I am accountable and liable to retribution, but the
instant I shall pass from this realm of shadows, all this skepticism will
be banished forever from my mind. For the future state is the _final_
state, and hence all questions are settled, and all doubts are resolved.
While upon earth, the arrangements are such that we cannot see every
thing, and must walk by faith, because it is a state of probation; but
when once in eternity, all the arrangements are such that we cannot but
see every thing, and must walk by sight, because it is the state of
adjudication. Hence it is, that the preacher is continually urging men to
view things, so far as is possible, in the light of eternity, as the only
light that shines clearly and without refractions. Hence it is, that he
importunes his hearers to estimate their duties, and their relationships,
and their personal character, as they will upon the death-bed, because in
the solemn hour of death the light of the future state begins to dawn
upon the human soul.

It is very plain that if a spiritual man like the apostle Paul, who in a
very remarkable degree lived with reference to the future world, and
contemplated subjects in the light of eternity, was compelled to say that
he knew but "in part," much more must the thoughtless natural man confess
his ignorance of that which will meet him when his spirit returns to God.
The great mass of mankind are totally vacant of any just apprehension of
what will be their state of mind, upon being introduced into God's
presence. They have never seriously considered what must be the effect
upon their views and feelings, of an entire withdrawment from the scenes
and objects of earth, and an entrance into those of the future state.
Most men are wholly engrossed in the present existence, and do not allow
their thoughts to reach over into that invisible region which revelation
discloses, and which the uncontrollable workings of conscience sometimes
_force_ upon their attention for a moment. How many men there are, whose
sinful and thoughtless lives prove that they are not aware that the
future world will, by its very characteristics, fill them with a species
and a grade of information that will be misery unutterable. Is it not the
duty and the wisdom of all such, to attempt to conjecture and anticipate
the coming experience of the human soul in the day of judgment and the
future li