not suspend the fellowship which believers in Jesus Christ have with
Him, their common Lord. Death separates the soul from the body, but it
does not cut off the dead from communion with the Father or the Son. He
who is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob is the God not of the
dead, but of the living. Of the whole family of the saints, some are in
heaven and some on earth, and, between those who are there and those who
are here, there is communion. Since the heavenly Church received Abel as
its first member, there has been unceasing fellowship between militant
and glorified saints. Those who are here are shut out by the tabernacle
of the body from personal intercourse with the souls of the departed,
but are yet in a fellowship with them that is very real and precious.
The holy dead act upon the living, and, it may be, are reacted upon in
ways we do not understand. Of Abel we are told that "being dead, he yet
speaketh."[196] Those whom death has taken do not cease to exert an
influence on the lives of friends left behind. Their example, their good
deeds, their writings, the undying consequences of what they did while
on earth affect us. The veil which death interposes between us and them
hinders us from witnessing their spirit life, and we know not whether,
or in what measure, or how, they contemplate us. We do not go to them to
ask them to intercede for us with the Father, for we believe there is
but one Mediator between God and man. We do not invest them with
attributes which belong to God alone; all that we are warranted to say
about their relation to us is, that what is revealed does not forbid,
but rather encourages, the thought that they are interested in us and
concerned for our happiness. If the angels rejoice over the conversion
of a sinner, are we to think that the spirits of just men made perfect
are strangers to this joy? They are within the veil, we cannot see them,
but we know they are in communion with God. The condition of the
departed saints is one of waiting as well as of progress. They have not
attained to fruition. There are doctrines which to them, as to us, are