sarily refer to a specific case. But though our Saviour might not have had reference to a particular individual, yet the facts themselves must be real, otherwise the parable teaches a falsehood. To represent a lost soul as recurring to the events of its earthly existence, when lost souls have no such power, would be a flagrant misrepresentation, such as we cannot charge upon our Saviour. We grant that this is not a historical narrative of a particular individual who remembered, but an imaginary case, to illustrate the general truth, that the soul in a future world does remember.

Indeed, this is implied in the very nature of retribution. The soul is to be punished for the deeds done in the body; and unless it remember those deeds, how can it know for what it is punished? How can conscience, whose stings constitute an important element in this punishment, inflict remorse for sins which are not remembered? How can God be vindicated for the infliction of the curse of his law? How can every mouth be stopped, and the whole world become guilty before God, as the result of unremembered transgressions? The nature of retribution, and the end of God's government in it, require that the soul should remember,

Moreover, the philosophy of the mind itself teaches the same thing. There is no proof that any part of the mind's knowl edge is ever lost. We forget, that is, ideas pass from our thoughts, and are lost for the time, but reflection; and association, and various other causes, can bring back these lost possessions, and make present to our thoughts the events of years gone by. Go to the place of your birth, and look at the objects that were familiar to you in early days, and the scenes and events of childhood, which have been gone from you for years, will come thronging up from the storehouse of memory, and you will almost think yourself a child again. The past is not forever gone, and at the appropriate signal it can all be summoned before us.

And is there any evidence that death will break this chain of memory? The ancients were accustomed to write upon parchments; and when they had no further use for what was written, it was erased, and the same surface was covered again. Such a parchment was called a palimpsest. A modern process has been discovered, by which the first impressions on the palimpsest may be rendered visible, and thus records that were lost for ages have been found. The human mind is a "palimpsest," On its tablets many successive impressions have been written. The early ones have been erased and forgotten, and others imprinted in their place; but the spiritual chemistry of the future world will bring to light those hidden characters, and the long lost records of our past lives will be recovered and remembered.

Many facts, however, might be adduced, bearing upon this position. We know, that in some cases, as the clay taber

nacle tumbles down, the memory seems to be quickened with a new life. Persons on the very brink of the grave have been known to relate, with wonderful minuteness, circum stances which occurred many years before, and had been long forgotten. Sometimes they have even used a language which they had learned in childhood, but in which they had not been able to converse in years. A Lutheran clergyman ¡n Philadelphia asserts, that he has often heard aged German's, on their death-beds, pray in the German language, which they had not spoken for sixty years. It is also related by persons rescued from drowning, after consciousness had ceased, that during the few moments of their consciousness while in the water, their whole lives seemed to rush in a torrent of recollection through their minds. These, and many other facts of a similar character, show that the powers of mind do not partake of the body's decay, and they distinctly foreshadow its increased activity in its disembodied state. And what is there in death, either to impair the powers of the mind or break the chain of its exercises? Why should the soul be more affected in its qualities by the dissolution of the whole body, than by the ambutation of a limb? It escapes from its prison, aud changes its residence, but does not lose its identity, nor surrender its powers. It will anticipate the future; it will be conscious of the present; it will remember the past.

II. Not only will the memory exist in the future world, but it will probably possess far greater activity and energy than in the present life, and thus be enabled to recall the past, with a distinctness and vividness which are now wholly

unknown.

I admit that we are now going beyond the domain of certain knowledge, but we may make inferences with considerable certainty, from facts which are well known. It is rational to suppose that the mind will acquire new activity, by its emancipation from the body; that when it throws off this mortal coil, it will start up into a new and more vigorous life; and why should not memory receive a new impulse as well as the other powers? That our knowing faculty will be vastly increased, is expressly asserted in the Word of God. Why not, then, the remembering faculty, which is so intimately associated with it?

But there will be circumstances connected with the lost which must greatly facilitate the remembering of earthly There will be nothing to divert the mind from the view and study of the gloomy past. The lost soul will be excluded from all society except the society of those as solitary and wretched as itself, and shut up to its own melancholy reflections. The saved, we have reason to believe, will be actually engaged in ministries of good, and in this will consist no small part of their happiness. But the lost

will have nothing to do but to "remember." They are spoken of in the Scriptures as shut up in prison, as bound in chains. They will be constrained to reflect-they will find no other employment. There will be nothing to turn off the mind from its dismal work of remembering. There will be no bargains to be made-no schemes of ambition to be formed-no schemes of gaiety and mirth to drown his thoughts and keep them from straying back over the past. There will be nothing to do but to remember, and the memory will act with terrible energy and effect.

You know what reflection does for a guilty soul even in this world. Peter was very comfortable for a while, after denying his Master, but "when he thought thereon he wept." Judas, as soon as he came to reflect, saw, as he had not seen it before, the enormity of his sin in betraying his Master, and in bitter anguish of soul cast down the price of the Saviour's blood, and rushed out and hanged himself. Herod was so troubled by the remembrance that he had murdered John the Baptist, that he could not think Christ was any one else than his murdered victim raised from the grave. This, said he, is John the Baptist: he is risen from the dead. How often have criminals shown no uneasiness in consequence of their crimes, till they come to reflect in the solitude of a dungeon. Then they remembered, and every thought of the past rolled, as in billows of fire, through their souls. Why is it, that solitary confinement, without labor, is regarded as the severest form of imprisonment? It is because the lonely victim can find nothing to do but to remember. And this incessant remembering has often proved more than the mind could bear, and reason has been driven from her throne. Philanthropists have protesed against the cruelty of thus compelling the criminal continually to re

member.

In the ol State-prison in Connectitut, this form of punishment was e.nployed as the extreme of severity. There was an apartment of the prison called the "sounding-room," which was round-a cavity dug from the solid rock. In this spherical cell the refractory convict was chained to the floor, and left to his solitary reflections. This treatment was al ways successful. The stoutest heart could not endure it long. "Give me something to do," he would say," or at least something to look at; or if that cannot be, give me a cell that is not round-one that has some inequality, or corner, or crevice—something on which I can fix my aching eyesomething to occupy my aching thought." Yet this was but a few days, and much of this time was spent in sleep. And if memory can do such a work for a guilty soul, during a few short hours of reflection in an earthly prison, oh! what an array of bitter, appalling thoughts will it summon before the soul during its endless reflections in the prison of despair!

There will be time enough there to spend an age upon each particular act of life. There will be no variety, no objects of curiosity or interest to divert the mind. There will be no respite, no sleep, no rest,-nothing but incessant, intense, remembering.

But, it may be urged, the condition of the lost soul is not represented as a solitary one. Will not the society which the sinner will meet in the eternal abode shield him, in some measure, from the power of the remembered past? No! On the other hand, it will constantly remind him, with new distinctness, of the scenes of his probation. He will meet in the world of torment those whom he knew on earth, and whom he encouraged and helped on in the road to death.

When the exile, who has been driven into banishment for crimes committed in his native land, meets an old accomplice in crime whose ruin he has himself assisted to procure, how vividly does the meeting call to mind the scenes of their guilty career, mantling the cheek with a deeper hue of shame, and piercing the soul with sharper stings of remorse! Will it be otherwise, when the exile from God and Heaven encounters the companions of his godless days-perhaps the victims of his own sinful conduct or example? Must not the meeting awaken a thousand bitter memories of this wasted probation, and open new vials of woe upon the conscience-stricken soul? All the associations of the world of the lost will be the agents which conscience shall employ to carry the mind back to earth, and to echo the terrible words of Abraham to the rich man-remember! remember!

The agency of the Devil, by whom they were deceived and allured to ruin, will greatly quicken the memory of the lost, and supply abundant materials to exercise it. Now he would have men forget their sins; wipe out the faintest remembrance of them, lest they should be so distressed by them as to cry to God for mercy and for deliverence from them. But in the world to come we know not that he could do this if he would, and evidently he would not do it if he could. For he is supremely malignat, and is bent on making his victims as utterly miserable as he can. When once he has made sure of them beyond the possibility of escape, he will throw off the mask of innocence and kindness which he now wears, and make it his chief delight to torment them. To this dreadful end will he apply all the art and power of his infernal agency. He will see that they escape no bitter reflection or organizing thought; no ingredient in their cup of woe will be wanting; and he will constrain them to drink that cup to its lowest dregs. With bitter taunts for their folly, and fiendish delight in their woes, he will point them to the wasted and perverted past-a Saviour refused-a probation lost a heaven despised-repeating, though with a far different motive, the words of Abraham to the rich man, remember! remember!

The process of judgment, moreover, will greatly quicken memory and furnish the mind with exhaustless topics of reflection. "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." By some means, we know not what, we shall be enabled to recall all the scenes and acts and even the thoughts of our whole lives; and the terrible array will be as distinct before our eyes as the sun in heaven. And as God himself summons them before us, as they are the basis of judgment, and the grounds of the final sentence, and as conscience will stand ready to burn them into the soul unless they are washed out by Jesus' blood, they will remain for ever in distinct remembrance. But it is proper to inquire,

III. What subjects will probably be most prominent in the reflections of the lost soul.

"Remember," said Abraham to the rich man," that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things." Here, then, is one thing which the lost will certainly remember. They will remember the gifts of Providence, for which they requited their Maker with ingratitude and rebellion.

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My hearer, God has opened his hand, and strewed your path in life with blessings. The wholesome atmosphere that heaves your breast, the healthful pulsations of your heart, the supply of your unnumbered daily wants, the shield that protects your slumbers at midnight, the friends that share with you the trials and joys of life, the innumerable blessings with which your life is filled, are the free bounty of your forgotten Father in heaven; they are so many cords thrown around your soul to draw you to himself and if you break away from them all and press on in impenitence down to death and to hell, you will remember these ten thousand kindnesses of the Lord. The remembrance of the amazing ingratitude of your conduct in resisting all these mercies, and hardening your neck in rebellion against the generous Giver, will follow you to eternity, and harrow up your feelings to their intensest pitch. You will remember distinctly each of the countless blessings with which God crowned your lives, and gladdened your hearts in this world of grace, but which were forgotten in unthankfulness. You will remember how He fed, and clothed, and protected you, though you were so unthankful and disobedient; how He held back the bolt of his anger from your head, and permitted you to prosper while you were "despising the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." All this, and the ingratitude it involves, and which you would give worlds to forget, you will be compelled to remember, and remember for ever.

2. Again, you will doubtless remember the spiritual privileges which you failed to improve. Whatever may be your