The essential features of the intermediate state are deducible from the Lord's parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Read Luke 16:19-31. While it would be critically unfair to affirm doctrinal principles on the incidents of an ordinary story, we cannot admit that Christ would teach falsely even in parable; and therefore we accept as true our Lord's portrayal of conditions in the spirit world. That righteous and unrighteous dwell apart between death and resurrection is made clear. Paradise, or, as the Jews liked to designate that blessed abode, "Abraham's bosom," is not the place of final glory, any more than the hell to which the rich man's spirit went is the final habitation of the lost. Between the two, however, "there is a great gulf fixed." To that intermediate state of existence men's works do follow them (Rev. 14:13); and the dead shall find that in their bodiless state their condition is that for which they have prepared themselves while in the flesh. -- 74 -- HOW LONG SHALL HELL LAST? The Duration of Punishment WE are accustomed to speak broadly of salvation and condemnation in the hereafter as reward and punishment, respectively. The Scriptures justify this usage, and furthermore make plain the fact that reward or punishment will be a natural and inevitable heritage resulting from individual righteousness or sin. The Eternal Judge of the quick and the dead is bound by His own inviolable laws--and no less so than by His Divine attributes of justice and mercy--to exalt every deserving soul, and to validate and enforce the loss and suffering consequent to wilful wickedness. Verily, the Lord God is no respecter of persons, condoning the unexpiated sins of favorites and inflicting punishment upon others for but equal guilt. Such an unbelievable condition would mean injustice and vindictiveness. Everlasting blessedness is thoroughly consistent with justice. The souls that attain to salvation and eternal life "shall have glory added upon their heads forever and ever." (Pearl of Great Price, p. 66.) But the thought of never-ending punishment as the fate of all who die in their sins is repugnant; and rightly so. As reward for righteous living is to be proportionate to deserts, so punishment for sin must be graded according to the offense. The purpose of punishment is disciplinary, reformatory, and in support of justice. God's mercy is as truly manifest in the expiatory suffering, which He allows, as in the endless joys of salvation, which He bestows. As to the duration of punishment, we may take assurance that it shall be measured to the individual in just accordance with the sum of his iniquity. That every sentence for sin must be interminable is as directly opposed to a rational conception of justice as it is contradictory of the revealed Word of God.