Surely there will be scope for them all. When you think of that great mingled crowd that is daily passing through the gates of death, all sorts and conditions—from the strong saints of God to the poor children brought up in homes of sin—you need have little doubt that there is room for service.
If it be true, ah! think of it, you who are trying to forget yourselves, and live for others—think of the blessedness of your life in the waiting land. With the weak and the ignorant needing to be helped; with the little children needing to be mothered and loved; with the great heathen world, who have gone within the veil, never yet having heard of Christ.
§ 4
If it be true, think how it takes away the reproach of "glorified selfishness," which many attribute to the Christians' glad hope.
Think how it helps in the perplexities about God's dealings when young and useful lives are taken from the earth. An angry mourner said to me recently, "I don't believe God has anything to do with it, else why should He take away a noble life like that and leave all these stupid useless people in the world?" I told him of my hope of this ministry in the Unseen and suggested that perhaps God did not want ONLY the stupid useless people.
And think especially how it deepens the importance of our life on earth to feel that it has a bearing on our usefulness for ever. The more we increase our talents here, the more we shall be able to help our Saviour there. He Himself suggests this in the parables of the Talents and the Pounds. "Thy pound has gained five, I will set thee over five cities. Thy pound has gained ten, I will set thee over ten cities. I will give thee a larger and nobler work hereafter." Is not that an incentive to stir one's blood? The more I grow in love, in unselfishness, in knowledge of God, in righteousness of life, the more use I shall be to my dear Lord and to my brethren for ever.
CHAPTER XII
CONCLUSION
So we close our thoughts about the NEAR HEREAFTER, the life immediately after death. The FAR Hereafter—the great mystery of Judgment and Hell and Heaven belongs to a later section. Here we have been dealing only with the life going on to-day in the Unseen—side by side with our present life.
Ah! that wonderful Paradise land—that wonderful Church of God in the Unseen—with its vast numbers, with its enthusiastic love, with all its grand leaders who have been trained on earth. WE AND THEY together form the great continuous Church of God. We are all ONE LONG PROCESSION; they at the head in the Unseen. What a life it is! What a work it has!