awake, requiring a place of conscious abode, but that it is at once disposed of by GOD, and in a manner which shows an immediate judgment of it. As soon as Lazarus died, he was carried to Abraham’s bosom, and there was comforted: as soon as Dives died, in hell (a place of misery of some kind) he lift up his eyes, being in torments. “This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,” was the promise of Him, Who could not promise idly. To be absent from the body is, for the saint, to be present with the LORD, and a vision showed St. John the souls of the martyrs living and pleading beneath the altar. What does all this teach us, but that the GOD of Judgment meets us at the gate of death, and there and then judges and disposes of us? It is somewhat speculative to inquire what is the nature of the judgment. It is beyond us to understand how an immediate judgment is compatible with a future one. We know not whether GOD at first privately intimates what He will at last publicly pronounce; whether this is the actual, that only the formal decision; whether the scrutiny is now made, or only rehearsed; whether the soul is actually tried, or only committed for trial, and in the mean time so dealt with by immediate imprisonment, or liberation on pledge to appear, as to hint, rather than plainly declare what shall be its ultimate fate; whether it enters at once into a state of actual, though partial, experience of joy or misery, companying with GOD, with CHRIST, with holy angels, or with Satan and evil spirits; or whether it is left in an antechamber where it but anticipates the future reward, and actually receives none of it. All this is mystery. But certain we are, brethren, that death, is in some sense the time of judgment, and consequently that in some way, at the very moment of departure from this life we are confronted with the GOD of Judgment. Oh, that we could feel this! What a precious time and talent it would make our life; what an awful antechamber of GOD’S presence! How we should be deterred from doing evil; how stirred to do good! How should we be watching, staff in hand; how resolutely should we do our work, how patiently should we suffer! Could we then be at home in the world, prone to sinful pleasures, distracted or engrossed by worldly cares, indifferent to sin and holiness? No, it would be impossible! Could we be idle, if we knew that our work would so soon be scrutinised? Could we delay the cultivation of a grace necessary for heaven, if we knew that the time for acquiring it might so soon be over? Could we hazard the interests of eternity, if we knew that we were separated from them, not by a wide and lasting world, not by many, many years of forgetfulness in the grave, but only by a thin veil, through which they might even now be albut heard and seen, which the next moment might be rent in twain, which at the most, in a few short years, will be wholly taken away! Oh! brethren, we can risk our eternal hopes when they seem