§ 4
Next I learn that each feels himself the same continuous "I" that he was on earth. Lazarus feels himself the same Lazarus, Dives feels himself the same Dives, the brother of those five boys. I shall still keep on saying "I." I am not somebody else over there. That is what Jesus said from the other side of the grave—"Handle Me and see—it is I, Myself."
§ 5
Next I read on His authority that there is no break in memory. Of course there could not be if I am still "I." But our Lord confirms this. Lazarus remembers Dives. Dives remembers Lazarus so well that he wants him to go back to convert his brothers. Aye, he remembers the brothers in the old Jerusalem home, the five boys that grew up beside him. He remembers sorrowfully that they have grown to be selfish men like himself, perhaps through his fault. He is thinking about them and troubling about them. And Abraham assumes this memory as a matter of course. "My son, remember that thou in thy lifetime, etc."
Does not all this confirm our statement in Chapter I, that memory is something more than impressions on the gray matter of the brain; that memory is in the man himself who is behind the brain and, therefore, must go on with him.
§ 6
I read on, "Now he is comforted and thou art tormented." That again is just what I should expect. It is all quite natural. If "I" am still the same "I" in full vivid conscious life, in full memory of the past—if I have passed out of the mists of earth into the full light of the Eternal, where everything is seen at its full value, where money counts for nothing and love counts for everything, it is of course natural that the good man should feel comforted and the bad man should feel tormented.
Only more so. Only more so. That is the difference. The poor humble follower of Christ, even on earth, is in the main happy—at his best moments. But he is not always very happy. He has the inner comfort of the peace of God. But there is much worry and distraction, about his business and his sickness and his troubles of many kinds to spoil his peace. All these earthly troubles are gone now. He sees Christ. He knows of the boundless joy before him by and by. He is comforted.
And I read that Dives "is tormented." Here again all is natural and as we should expect. The godless man is in some degree tormented in this life—at his best moments, when he stops to think, when he lies awake in the lonely night and conscience speaks to him. But there are many distractions to ease his pain—the pleasures and amusements of life, the company of friends, the pursuit of business, the excitements of ambition. So he can manage a good deal to forget God, to acquire a distaste for God, and yet to dull the still small voice that hurts him. But these distractions are gone now. He has gone out into the new life, naked, alone. All the money and business excitement are gone. All the things of sense and appetite are gone. That poor soul of his, dwarfed and degraded, stands in the dread loneliness before God, full of the sense of loss and misery—of shame for the past—of dread of what is to come—of wretched discord between himself and all that is good. In Hades, says Christ, not in Hell (the Revised Version puts that right), in that life just after death, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment. The Judgment has not come yet. He is not in Hell. Hell has not yet come. Those things are in the final stage of being. But already, just after death, Christ says, he is in torment of soul.
§ 7