So numerous are the affirmations in the New Testament of the survival of the conscious personality after death, that it would be superfluous to quote particular passages in proof of it. I say, "survival of the personality," for this is involved in the idea of a resurrection; because if our personality perished at death, a resurrection would not be a restoration of the former personality, but the creation of a new and irresponsible one. It sets forth this truth under two aspects.

1st. That our conscious personality will survive the death of our bodies.

2nd. That at some period of the future it will once more manifest itself in some form of bodily, i.e. material organisation.

It is to the last of these that its references are by far the most numerous. It is uniformly connected with the realisation of the idea of the perfected kingdom of God, and as the embodiment of the Christian's highest hopes and aspirations. But with respect to the first, its affirmations, though few, are distinct and clear. The following are the most important:1. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

While there can be no doubt that no small portion of the imagery of this parable is taken from the then current popular ideas respecting the nature of the underworld and the condition of the departed in Hades, which is represented as consisting of two regions, separated from one another by a deep gulf, but within sight and hearing of one another, in one of which the righteous are represented as reposing at a feast, and in the other the wicked as tormented in flames; yet after making all allowance for the imagery in which the parable is clothed, it is impossible to understand it otherwise. than as intended definitely to affirm that the righteous and the wicked exist in Hades in their conscious personalities, capable of reasoning about the present, and possessing a lively recollection of the past; and that man's personality, when

separate from the body, is capable of activities which, as we are at present constituted, are only capable of being exercised through the aid of our present bodily organism. Further than this the parable does not go. The silence of the New Testament respecting the secrets of the unseen world is elsewhere unbroken throughout its pages. It is therefore incredible that its awful realities should have been intended to be revealed through the imagery of a parable. But while this is so, it is impossible to assign any meaning to it, except on the assumption that the conscious personality after death passes into Hades, and is there held responsible for its conduct here.

2. Our Lord's answer to the penitent robber.

"Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom; and he said unto him, verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." (Luke xxiii. 42, 43.)

This passage affords a striking illustration of the absurdities of interpretation to which men will have recourse when they have a particular theory to maintain. Those who hold that man's conscious existence ceases at death, and that it will not be renewed until the resurrection, propose to read our Lord's words as follows: "Verily I say unto thee to-day, thou shalt be with me in paradise.". This strange device has been adopted for the purpose of escaping the inference which common sense suggests, that the affirmation was a promise that the penitent robber should on that very day be with our Lord in paradise, the theory in question requiring that his personal consciousness should be extinct until the resurrection.

We have no means of ascertaining with certainty what were the precise ideas which were entertained by the penitent robber respecting the condition of man after death when he prayed to Jesus to be remembered when He came in His kingdom. Being not a vulgar thief, as the Authorised

Version represents him to have been, but one of those bandits who abounded at the time and afterwards, who rose in insurrection against the Roman government, and who, probably, like Barabbas, in doing so had committed murder, he was doubtless strongly animated with the Messianic expectations of his countrymen. This being so, the ideas of a bandit respecting the unseen would be naturally those then current, and our Lord's reply, if it was to be intelligible to him, would be accommodated to those with which alone he was acquainted.

According to them, paradise was that upper region of Hades, free from darkness and gloom, in which the Old Testament saints reposed as at a feast, and where they rested, according to the imagery of the parable, in Abraham's bosom.* The promise, therefore, went beyond the prayer, it being a promise not only to be remembered at our Lord's coming in His kingdom, but to be received into this happy region on that very day, immediately after death had released him from his sufferings. It therefore amounts to a direct affirmation of the survival of the conscious personality after the death of the body.

3. The next reference to the condition of man after death is the following passage in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians

:

"For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle [margin, bodily frame'] be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven, if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For, indeed, we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon,

*The reader will find a full account of the ideas which were entertained about Paradise, and the origin of the word itself, in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible."

that what is mortal might be swallowed up of life. Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord; we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord. Wherefore we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him. For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in [margin, through'] the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad." (2 Cor. v. 1-10.)

Although the precise meaning which the Apostle intended to convey by the earlier portion of this paragraph is somewhat doubtful, yet the general meaning of his utterance, taken as a whole, is clear. In it he expresses the fullest persuasion that when his bodily frame was dissolved by death, he himself, i.e. his conscious personality, would be present with the Lord; and not only so, but that his presence with Him would involve such a state of felicity that he was willing to be absent from the body in order that he might be present with the Lord. Such hopes and expectations involve the belief that all those mental powers which constituted his personality would continue to exist after death. It is also equally plain that, contrary to every idea which was entertained by ancient philosophers, he considered that an embodied existence of some kind was preferable to a disembodied one. Not," says he, "that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that what is mortal might be swallowed up of life." The point on which his opening words leave some doubt is, whether he expected to enter "the house not made with hands" immediately after the dissolution of his present bodily frame, or at some future period, because he elsewhere connects that hope with the coming of Christ.

4. The following is a further expression of St. Paul's belief respecting his condition after death :

According to my earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing I shall be put to shame; but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh-if this is the fruit of my work, then what I shall choose I wot not [margin, 'I do not make known.'] For I am in a strait betwixt the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for it is very far better; yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake." (Phil. i. 20-24.)

This passage is a definite expression of the Apostle's belief that the death of his body would occasion no break in his conscious personal existence. Also that that existence after death would be far preferable to his present earthly one, compared with which "to die would be gain." These affirmations, therefore, render it certain that the Apostle firmly believed that he-not merely his spirit or his soul, but the veritable Paul himself as soon as he was divested of his present bodily environment, would pass into a state of conscious existence, in which he would be capable of enjoying the presence of his Lord. Such a state of existence involves the survival both of the rational powers and of the spiritual and moral affections.

5. Similar also is the affirmation of St. Peter in the following passage:

"Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit; in which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water." (1 Peter iii. 18-20.)