Our Saviour declares (St. Matthew, xii. 32,) that "whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this life or in the world to come;" which shows, as St. Augustine says in the twenty-first book of his work, "The City of God," that there are some sins (venial of course) which shall be forgiven in the next world, and that, consequently, there is a middle state, or place of purgation in the other life, since no one can enter heaven having any stain of sin, and surely no one can obtain forgiveness in hell. The testimony of St. Paul is very clear on this point of doctrine: "For no man can lay another foundation but that which is laid; which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build on that foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he had built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; _but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire_." * * * * * In the First Epistle of St. Peter (Chap. iii. 18, 19), we learn that Christ "being put to death, indeed, in the flesh, but brought to life by the spirit, in which also He came and preached to those spirits who were in prison." Our Blessed Saviour, immediately after death, descended into that part of hell called Limbo, and, as St. Peter informs us, "preached to the spirits who were in prison." This most certainly shows the existence of a middle state. The spirits to whom our Lord preached were certainly not in the hell of the damned, where His preaching could not possibly bear any fruit; they were not already in heaven, where no preaching is necessary, since there they see God face to face. Therefore they must have been in some middle state--call it by whatever name you please-- where they were anxiously awaiting their deliverance at the hands of their Lord and Redeemer. Belief in Purgatory is more ancient than Christianity itself. It was the belief among the Jews of old, and of this we have clear proof in the Second Book of Machabees, xii., 43. After a great victory gained by that valiant chieftain, Judas Machabeus, about two hundred years before the coming of Christ, "Judas making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and justly concerning the resurrection.... It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins."