This makes it plain that the paradise referred to was the prison house, to which place Jesus went and opened up a dispensation of the Gospel to the dead. The next chapter, 6th verse, says: "For for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." The thief therefore went to a place of confinement to remain until the justice of God should be satisfied and mercy step in and claim her own. The difference between the penitent malefactor, who appears to have repented before death, and the antediluvians was that the former immediately went to a place where Christ would present to him the plan of life, that day, while the latter had waited hundreds of years for that privilege. This shows that repentance brings its blessings even upon the deathbed; but to say that, after a life of sin, the malefactor went straight to the abode of the Father and remained there in glory, is in conflict with the teachings of Christ and Peter. The statements of Peter relative to the mission of Christ to the spirits in prison throws light upon the saying of the Savior in St. John v:25, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." Thus we see the privileges of the penitent malefactor. He went to the prison house and heard the Gospel, but how long he remained there before receiving all the saving benefits of the Gospel, we are not told. One thing is certain-he did not come back with the Messiah, nor have we ever heard of him sitting down with Christ on the right hand of the Father. The Scripture being true which says, "The murderer hath not eternal life abiding in him," it is safe to say that the prayers of all the ministers on earth cannot carry the souls of the assassin to the presence and glory of God. As there are different degrees of glory, so are there various grades of crimes to which are attached the different degrees of punishment, all of which clearly maintain the justice and mercy of God. In Galatians v:19-21, we read as follows: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."