IMPRISONED SOULS.
Yet, while we have no details given us as to the process or the time required for purification, we have certain suggestions. In the Old Testament there is a reference to "prisoners of hope." The reference is somewhat obscure, and taken by itself it is of doubtful meaning. But in the New Testament it is intimated that Christ went and "preached to the spirits in prison." There we have a gleam of light as to what is meant by "prisoners of hope." There were imprisoned souls to whom Christ took some joyful message. We have no statement as to the purport of the message, or the circumstances of the prisoners, beyond the fact that they were confined.
While not going outside of what is revealed, it does not seem too much to assume that He took to them the good news of Restoration, and perhaps kindred topics. O yes; the Saviour's death had reference not to ourselves alone, but it had a relation to those in another world.
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Perhaps I ought to say here that this supposed state of discipline is by no means to be confounded with the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.
The term of duration of purgatorial fire is supposed to be determined by the priest, who can effect a release at any time he pleases. It is simply a matter of payment. And the idea of purgatory may be held—I think is generally held—without conceiving of it as a means of purification. Is it not rather conceived of as a place of punishment?
But the intermediate state we conceive of is a state of purification and education. There may be intense suffering in certain cases. We can conceive that such suffering may be required as a means of purification. In other cases no great suffering, or none at all, may be necessary. By some means, specially adapted to each case, every soul will be prepared to enter a state of blessedness.
Even that final state may have lower grades, preparatory for the higher. It does not seem consistent with God's dealings with man to thrust a frail human spirit into the blinding glory of heaven. It is far more likely that there are lower stages, preparatory for higher. When a child is born into the world it is not even aware for a time that it has entered on a new mode of existence. But it adapts itself unconsciously to its new surroundings, and by easy stages develops perhaps into a poet or a philosopher. In some such way, but on a higher plane, we can believe that the soul is developed in the future life. We may confidently leave all details with Him who is "Wise in Counsel, and excellent in working," and whose love is unchangeable and everlasting.
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.