redeemed may be preserved in eternal blessedness. This is a great
mystery. The very thought of it excites our wonder, and love,
and praise.

I have touched here, as I have said, on a great mystery; but it will be
observed that I have advanced it only as a possibility. As such, it
immensely enlarges our view of the wisdom and love of the divine
administration, and that not only in this life, but in the next. It also
gives us a faint light on the everlasting mystery of pain. If it should
turn out that suffering in its varying form and degree is really
necessary as an object lesson for all eternity, we can conceive that
when we see it in this light we shall be almost overwhelmed with wonder
and adoration.




VIII.


THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.

Meagre Details--Good Reasons Why--Extent of the Universe--Future
Glory--Sin in Other Worlds--No Revelation--Future Abode of the
Righteous--Solid or Ethereal--Impossible Revelations--Present Duties
and Interests--Our Limitations--Necessity of Purification--Preaching
to the Spirits in Prison--Stages of Progress--The Law of Gradual
Development.