Notice first the curiously persistent formula in which Old Testament chroniclers speak of death. "He died in a good old age and WAS GATHERED UNTO HIS PEOPLE and they buried him." "Gathered unto his people" can hardly mean burial with his people, for the burial is mentioned after it. It comes between the dying and the burial. And I note that even at Moses' burial on the lone mountain top this phrase is solemnly used. "The Lord said unto him get thee up into the mount and die in the mount AND BE GATHERED TO THY PEOPLE." Miriam was buried in the distant desert, Aaron's body lay on the slopes of Mount Hor, and the wise little mother who made the ark of bulrushes long ago had found a grave, I suppose, in the brick-fields of Egypt. Did it mean that he came back to them all in the life unseen when he was "gathered to his people"? David seemed to think that he would know his dead child. "I shall go to him but he shall not return to me." Our Lord assumes that Dives and Lazarus knew each other. And in another passage He uses a very homely illustration of a friendly gathering when He speaks of those who shall "sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom." And again in His advice about the right use of riches. "Make to yourselves friends by the means of the mammon of unrighteousness that when ye die they may receive you into the everlasting habitations" (Luke xvi. 9). Surely, that at least suggests recognition and a pleasant welcoming on the other side. I remember well, how in the pain of a great bereavement, His words to the penitent thief came into my life like a message from the Beyond. "To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." I put myself in the place of that poor friendless man taking his lonely leap off into the dark and felt what a joy and comfort it must have been. "To-day we shall be together again at the other side." Not, "I will remember thee," but, "Thou shalt be with Me." Not, by and by when I come in My Kingdom, but "To-day." If anybody knew, surely Jesus knew. If His words meant anything surely they meant we shall be conscious of each other, we shall know each other as the two friendless ones who hung on the cross together. Then I see St. Paul (though he is referring to the later stage of existence) comforting bereaved mourners with the thought of meeting those whom Christ shall bring with Him. Where would be the comfort of it if they should not know them? He expects to meet his converts and present them to Christ. How could he say this if he thought He would not know them?