lowers are not so well prepared to answer. We reply therefore, it was in the INTERMEDIATE STATE, and to a discussion of this subject we intend to devote the remainder of these pages. We have selected it, because although one most important to us, there is probably no truth asserted in the Creed, which is so little understood.

The faith of the Church then with respect to the doctrine is briefly this - that while the hour of death decides irreversibly the condition of the spirit, so that "they which are holy will be holy still," and for the wicked there will remain no more sacrifice for sin, neither can it be purged away by offering for ever, yet the just do not at once enter into Heaven, nor do the lost descend immediately to their eternal prison. They go to an intermediate state, where they await the last judgment. There indeed the righteous are in happiness, and the wicked in misery, through all the ages which intervene; yet the one can not have "the fullness of joy," nor the other suffer the extremity of their destined misery, until their souls are once more united to their bodies. This takes place at the second coming of our Lord. At that time, the spiritual and earthly parts of

our nature will be again brought into union, and the mighty army of the dead gather before the Great White Throne. Then, the Books will be opened the final sentence be pronounced-the gates of Heaven, and the dreary prison house of the lost, unclose to receive their appointed occupants-and the spirits of all who have ever lived, commence the travel of Eternity.

In endeavoring to state the proofs on which we rest our belief in this doctrine, we naturally turn first to the inspired word of God. For, as Lord Bacon has well remarked-"A knowledge of the soul must in the end be bounded by religion, or else it will be subject to deceit and delusion for as the substance of the soul in the creation was not extracted out of the mass of Heaven and earth by the benediction of a 'producat,' but was immediately inspired by God, so it is not possible that it should be otherwise than by accident, subject to the laws of Heaven and earth, which are the subject of philosophy; and therefore the true knowledge of the nature and state of the soul, must come by the same inspiration that gave the substance."4

เ

4 Advancement of Learning. BACON'S Works, vol. ii., p. 170, Montague's edit.

We learn then most plainly from Scripture, that the souls of the just do not (as some in all ages have vainly imagined,) sleep with their bodies in utter insensibility, until the morning of the resurrection. Every intimation there given us with regard to our spiritual nature, confirms the truth which reason teaches, that "consciousness must be a necessary attribute of a spirit in a disembodied state." Samuel was summoned up from his place of repose, evidently returning reluctantly to the cares of this world, and his inquiry was "Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up!" Every circumstance of the narrative too shows, that the spirit of Samuel was truly evoked. Saul evidently believed it, and the sacred penman records it, as if stating an actual occurrence. "And Saul"

says he"perceived that it was Samuel," and "Samuel said," etc. The son of Sirach also, who is thought to have written two centuries before the Christian era, expresses himself on this topic with the same unhesitating confidence. After giving a brief account of Samuel's life and character, he adds— "And after his death he prophesied and showed the King his end, and lift up his voice from the

earth in prophecy, to blot out the wickedness of the people." Josephus too in relating the story, does not betray the slightest suspicion that it was not in truth the soul of Samuel conversing with Saul. We are warranted therefore from this circumstance, not only in drawing an inference that the souls of the departed are in a state of consciousness, but also that this was an article in the popular creed of the Jewish nation. In the same way Moses and Elias appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration, and "talked with our Lord,” as being spirits evidently endowed with all those powers which reason teaches us must belong to them.

The same truth is taught by the Apostle Paul, when he asserts-"We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present," (or conversant) "with the Lord." And again he declares - "For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better." He thus plainly shows us, that the righteous when "absent from the body," are not in a state of insensibility,

5 Eccles. xlvi. 20.

Antiq. lib. vi., ch. 15.

but conversant with their Lord-in a situation where they enjoy a degree of communion with Him which they can not have while still in this state of probation. The Apostle did not indeed mean, that at death his spirit should at once pass into that Heaven to which his Lord had ascended, for in another place he speaks of "the crown of righteousness" being "laid up for him," not to be bestowed until that Great Day when his Master should sit as "the righteous Judge," and he should receive it in company with "all them also that love His appearing." "The word svona should be rendered" says Dr. Bloomfield-" not to be present with, but (agreeably to the metaphor,) to be at home with, implying communion with Him." Even while St. Paul was alive, he was with Christ, and Christ was with him, but the felicity for which he hoped at death was a nearer access to Him, and a greater communication of His favor. He should behold His glory, though not in that full brightness wherein it shall be seen at the day of His final appearing.

This brings us then to the question we would investigate. If the soul is to be in a state of consciousness when it has left the body, whither