But this hope must not ignore the solemn thought that in a very real sense the probation of this life seems the determining factor in human destiny--even for the unthinking--even for the ignorant--nay even for the heathen who could never have heard of Christ here. Rightly understood all that we have said does not conflict with this. It may seem strange at first sight to think of the heathen as having any real probation here. Yet, mark it well, it is of this heathen man who could not consciously have accepted Christ in this life that St. Paul implies that his attitude in the Unseen Life towards Him who is the Light of the World is determined by his attitude in this life towards the imperfect light of Conscience that he has. "If the Gentiles who have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law, these having not the Law are a law unto themselves, which show the works of the Law written in their hearts, their Conscience bearing witness" (Rom. ii. 14). We may assume that St. Paul means that the heathen man who in this life followed the dim light of his conscience is the man who will rejoice in the full light when it comes and that the man who has been wilfully shutting out that dim light of conscience here is thereby rendering himself less capable of accepting the fuller light when he meets it hereafter. In other words this life is his probation, he is forming on earth the moral bent of his future life. We may assume the same of men in similar conditions in Christian lands, men brought up amid ignorance and crime, men brought up in infidel homes, men to whom Christ has been so unattractively presented that they saw no beauty in Him or even instinctively turned away from Him impelled by their conscience. They all have the light of God in some degree and by their attitude towards the right that they know are determining on earth their attitude towards God in the Hereafter. They are forming character and _character tends to permanence_. The "outer darkness" it would seem comes not from absence of light but from blindness of sight. The joy of Heaven is impossible to the unholy just as the joy of beautiful scenery to the blind or the joy of exquisite music to the deaf. Probation in this life--simply means that in this first stage of his being a man either is or is not blinding his eyes and dulling his ears and hardening his heart so as to make himself incapable of higher things in the life to come.