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If the parable however, merely exhibited the sudden and shocking reversal of human judgments and alteration of human conditions, it might be open to the charge often brought against it, that it is a mere condemnation of wealthy men as wealthy and a defence of poverty. But the parable at once proceeds to show on what the reversal of human judgment is founded-it goes on to show what the character of the rich man had been, what was the moral element and principle which ran through and determined his life. upon earth. Son, remember," says Abraham to him, "remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things." That is to say, if you desired equality with Lazarus in this world of spirits, you should have laid the foundation for it in giving him equality with you in your life-time. Had you made friends. with the unrighteous mammon which you so abundantly possessed, you would have been anxiously expected and welcomed by Lazarus and all those you blessed. Had you used your wealth as God's steward for the use of God's suffering creatures, you would now be enjoying pleasures greater than ever you experienced on earth. You beg for the friendship of Lazarus now, and entreat his kindly offices; but you had the means of making him your friend while on earth. He is now beyond reach of your good things and friendship, and you are beyond reach of his. It is you yourself who allowed the contrast between you and Lazarus to abide, and it does abide. "Remember," look back on your earthly life, reflect upon its opportunities and the way you used them, and you will understand the origin and the justice of your present condition; you will recognise that it is yourself who have fixed this yawning chasm between you and all permanent joy. You did not bridge the chasm between you in life-you did not leave your splendour to sit by his side, to hold his racking, weary head, to drive off the dogs and make him feel that at least in one human breast

he had an asylum-you did not even send your servants to bring him in to an outhouse to lie among your cattle-you had everything that he needed and you left him in his need— you did not enquire into his necessities, nor penetrate through the rags and stench and poverty to the humanity they encased-you did not own him as a brother, and in anticipation of his lying in Abraham's bosom at the banquet of eternal bliss, take him in to yourself-you stood aloof and separated yourself from him, and that separation abides. Had you shared with him on earth you would have shared with him now.

This is no doubt a pretty hard lesson to learn. And I believe those will feel its hardness most who have most desire to learn it; who have candour enough and integrity of purpose enough to look straight at our Lord as He utters this counsel, and to feel that if they are to maintain a conscience void of offence they must be clear in their own minds as to the use they make of money and advantages. It is startling, too, to find that the destiny of Dives was determined by his conduct towards this one poor man: little as he thought of him, it was this powerless creature who could not even crawl into his path and force attention, who was exercising a more determining influence on his future than any of those who thronged his banquetting rooms and discussed with him all his plans and new devices of money-making or money-spending. What one person is it who holds this relation to our life; perhaps as little thought of by us as Lazarus by Dives, and yet truly determining what we are to be and to have in eternity? The man whose wants you relieve sullenly, almost angrily; the man whose too frequently recurring necessities you resent and spurn; the person who crossed your path when you were too much occupied with your own joys to observe his face of starvation or disease; such persons, and they whose claims you now refuse to look at for a moment, are determining your eternal condition,

But "beside all this"-the thing you ask is impossible. It is, in the first place, just that there should be this reversal of your condition; but supposing that Lazarus were willing to forget the long wretched hours he spent at your gate, or supposing that his experience of pain made him sensitive to yours and anxious to relieve it, the thing cannot be done. This too is an essential part of the parable. The results produced by character and a life-long habit cannot be expunged in the easy way suggested by Dives. The consequences of a selfish life of pleasure cannot be reversed as soon as they begin to be uncomfortable and distressing. If you take the wrong turning at the entrance to a mountain pass you may emerge very near your friend who has taken the right one, but with a yawning gulf between that no human agility can leap-the only way is to go right back and follow the path he has taken, and if it is too late to go back, if the night has fallen and the mist closed in around you, no beseeching of the inexorable hills will repair your error. So a life of easy careless selfishness leads to a moral condition, a state of heart and of lot, from which no sudden leap can bring a man into the company and condition of those who have passed through long years of purifying pain and patient endurance that have tested every fibre of their character.

It is a grave charge indeed that we are each of us entrusted with-to determine for ourselves the eternity in which we are to live. And are we to expect that this can be well done without thought, care, conflict, all that can prove us men and bring out our manhood? Does any one resent being called upon to be in earnest and to make this life an ideal and a noble life for himself? Does any one object to this life being a real trial of men, fitted to determine and actually determining what they really are?-Surely no right-minded person would shrink from a test that is real, that goes deep enough to search the very roots of evil and of good in us.

One would naturally expect that the parable would close at this point. The doom of the selfish pleasure-seeker, of the man who does not use the means in his power to help the needy, has been clearly shown. It has been shown that if Pharisees on earth deride the proposal to serve God only and not mammon at all, the Pharisee who has left earth is in no laughing mood, is convinced of the justice of his doom. and the impossibility of relief. And one would suppose this left no more to be said. But if no more had been said, the Pharisees, ever ready to justify themselves, would have said: This is a mere fancy sketch, spoken under provocation for the sake of alarming us. If things were as He represents them to be, some courteous ghost would blab it out-we should not be left by our father Abraham to glide on to such a doom, unstayed and unwarned. Anticipating such evasions, our Lord appends the pathetic supplication of Dives: "If I am past redemption, save my brethren; if no relief can reach me in this place of torment, hinder them from a similar doom." And this request is introduced merely for the sake of bringing out that already all needed warning is given, and that the proposed additional warning would have no effect whatever-that is to say, the Pharisees are without excuse if they continue their attempts to make the best of both worlds.

The statement of the parable, however, to the effect that those who disregard Moses and the Prophets would equally disregard the appearance of a dead friend, is one which at first seems open to question. Who has not often longed to lift the veil and see for a little the actual condition of the dead? Who has not felt as if it would be so much easier to believe if we could but for one hour see? Who has not been ready to say with these Pharisees: Why not end all this doubt, all this plague of scepticism, all this brutality and worldliness, by sending back from among the dead some messengers who might be identified, and who might plainly tell

us what they know, and allow us to cross-examine them? Could they be better employed? And if faith is so desirable, why is not everything done that can be done to give us faith? If there is a spiritual world in which it is so important that we believe, why are we not put in direct communication with it so that it would become as real to us as France or China or any country of whose existence we have no doubt, although we have never seen it? Is it possible that this world and a world so utterly different can be in so close a connexion, as if separated only by a paper screen through which a man may any moment fall, and that yet we should so little know what passes in that world? Is it possible that that world can be filled with friends of our own, and yet not one of them whispers us a single word, no more than if there were no such world at all? Is it possible that men who are today fully occupied with this world, following its fashion and leaving the world of retribution to sober, religious people, may to-morrow find themselves in that world? And if so, why does not nature herself cry out to warn us from our ruin? Why do not the spirits of the dead return and command us to hold back?

Such feelings are natural, but they are misleading. The rich man's brethren were heedless of the unseen world, not because they did not believe that any future state awaited them, but because this world's pleasures absorbed their interest. It was a profound moral change they needed, and for effecting such a change, "Moses and the Prophets," the continuous revelation of God and His holiness in the past, was a much more powerful and appropriate instrument than an apparition. By such a messenger from the dead as the rich man proposed-supposing his message could be authenticated-our ideas of what lies beyond the veil might be altered, and fear might lead us to adapt our conduct to the revealed future; but could our character be thus changed? No revelation of punishment awaiting the evil-doer could