Just now I have met with a Christian minister whom I know well, and a
worthy man he is, who has tried to evade the payment of a very small
debt. Now is it to be supposed that when that man dies he will go
straight into glory, infected with such a streak of meanness? Then where
will it be purged out of him? Will the process of death effect it?
Certainly not. What remains then, but that between this life and the
next there is some process of purification.
And that case is only a typical one. If we knew all, perhaps we should
find that there is a mean streak of some kind in every one of us. How
then shall we get rid of it? Just ponder that problem for awhile.
IX.
THE SPIRITS IN PRISON.
The Descent of Jesus into Hades--Singular Reserve of Preachers
--Purgatory--Dr. Gerhardt's Book--A Bodily Resurrection--The Spirit
World Requires a Spirit Body.
Here I would advert briefly to a topic that seems to me to have a strong
bearing in the same direction. I mean the descent of Jesus into Hades,
and the intimation that He "preached to the spirits in prison." On this
subject the whole Christian world--at least the Protestant world--has
maintained a singular reserve. In fact I have never heard the matter
even once casually referred to in any Protestant pulpit. It may be that
even a casual reference to it might be taken as favoring the Roman
Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.
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