The Life of Duty, volume II | Page 5

gained the whole world and lost his own soul. And worst of all, he sees Paradise afar off, and Lazarus resting there, where he may never come. That beggar whom he had despised and neglected, to whose wants he had never ministered, is comforted now, and the rich man is tormented.
Oh! awful contrast! Dives in his misery of despair looks up, and for a moment sees--
"The Heavenly City, Built of bright and burnished gold, Lying in transcendent beauty, Stored with treasures all untold.
There he saw the meadows dewy Spread with lilies wondrous fair-- Thousand thousand were the colours Of the waving flowers there.
There were forests ever blooming, Like our orchards here in May; There were gardens never fading, Which eternally are gay."
Saddest of all fates indeed must it be to gaze on Heaven and to live in Hell. Then Dives remembers his brethren in the world, who are living the old life which he lived in the flesh, spending his money perhaps; and, still selfish after death as before, he asks that the beggar may be sent from his rest and peace to warn them. The answer comes that they, like Dives himself, have Moses and the Prophets to teach them, if they neglect them nothing can avail them. And so the curtain drops over this dreadful scene. Let us, brethren, hearken to some of the lessons which come to us with a solemn sound from the world beyond the grave. In the first place, let us learn that being respectable is not a passport to Heaven. No doubt the rich man of the parable was very respectable. If he had lived in these days, and there are many of his family with us now, he would have worn glossy broadcloth instead of purple, and have held a responsible position in his town and parish. He would have gone to church sometimes, and have been very severe with the outcasts of the gutter and the back slums. And yet we find that all this outward respectability, these salutations in the market place, were no passport to Heaven. The man lived for himself--he was a lover of himself. He had no love for his brother whom he had seen, ay, every day, lying at his gate; and so he could have no love for God whom he had not seen. The sin of Dives, remember, was not that he was rich, it was that he was utterly selfish and worldly. A poor man may be just as sinful. The man who makes a god of his body and its pleasures, the man who makes a god of his work or his science, or of anything save the Lord God Almighty, the man who lives for himself and does nothing for the good of others, be he rich or poor, is in the same class with Dives in the parable. Next, there comes a thought of comfort from the story of the beggar Lazarus. There was no virtue in his being poor--but he loved his God, and he bore his sorrows patiently, and verily he had his reward. Jesus tells us that blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted; that all who have borne hunger and thirst, and persecution, or loss of friends for His sake, shall hereafter have a great reward. You, my brethren, who are any ways afflicted or distressed, who have to bear sickness or poverty, who have few friends and few prospects in this world, and yet are patient, and trustful, and believing, look beyond the veil, and be sure that there, if not here, you shall have your good things--such good things as pass man's understanding.
Again, we learn that death does not deprive us of memory. One of old said wisely that they who cross the sea change their sky, but not their mind, and that no exile ever yet fled from himself; and even after we have exchanged this world for the unseen world to come, we do not escape ourselves, our thoughts and memories are with us. The rich man was bidden to remember his past life. It must have been a terrible picture as seen in the clear understanding of the spirit world. Once his life had appeared pleasant enough, harmless enough; now Dives saw it in its true colour, and understood the selfishness, the worldliness, the godlessness which had ruined his soul. He saw all the mistakes which he had made, and felt the terrible conviction that it was too late to repair them. "Four things," says the Eastern sage, "come not back again: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity."
My brothers, what fate can be more awful than that of having to look back upon a wasted life through all eternity? God has