From this knowledge of God and of itself, therefore,—from this judgment of the last day,—will flow eternal life to the one class, and eternal punishment or suffering to the other. Those who have been conscientious and generous; who have endeavored faithfully to live for truth and right; who have made sacrifices, and not boasted of them; who have clothed the naked and fed the hungry, making the world better and happier by their presence,—will hear the Saviour say, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry, and ye gave me meat.” Perhaps they have never even heard the name of Christ; perhaps they were the Buddhists of Burmah, of whom Mr. Malcom speaks, who brought food to him, though a stranger to them. “I was scarcely seated,” says he, “when a woman brought a nice mat for me to lie on; another, cool water; and a man went and picked me a half dozen fine oranges. None sought or expected the least reward, but disappeared, and left me to my repose.” Or perhaps they will be the poor black women in Africa, who took such kind care of Mungo Park, singing, “Let us pity the white man: he has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind him corn.” The reward of their fidelity will be the gift of a greater power of goodness, coming from a knowledge of God and Christ. They were helping Christ, though they did not know him. They will say, “Lord, when saw we thee an hungered?” These Gentiles, without the law, who do by nature the things contained in the law, will come to know Christ, and receive a spiritual life—life flowing from that knowledge. On the other hand, those who have not endeavored to do what they knew to be right will receive from the same knowledge of God and Christ a spiritual or eternal punishment. Perhaps they have received some of it already in this world; but a deeper knowledge of the truth will bring a keener self-reproach. The worm that never dies is this gnawing(56) tooth of conscience. The fire which is not quenched is the heart still selfish, turned to evil, joined with a conscience which sees the good. For man, as long as he is man, cannot get away from himself. He may sophisticate himself with falsehoods, put his conscience to sleep, and imagine that he has escaped all the penalties of evil; but he cannot escape from himself. The longer and deeper the sleep of conscience, the more terrible its final awakening. Eternal punishment, therefore, is the punishment which comes to man from his spiritual nature; from that side of man which connects him with eternity, in contradistinction from temporal punishment, which is that which comes from his temporal nature and the temporal world. Through the body he receives temporal pleasure or pain from the world of time and space; through the spirit he receives spiritual joy or sorrow from the world of eternity and infinity.