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Death destroys neither the soul's capacities nor energies. Memory is eternal; it therefore behoves us to ask with what we are storing it.

1. Consciousness lies at the foundation of all responsible life, and soon merges into the fuller day of self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is the knowledge which self attains when it says "I," and recognizes that "I" is distinct from anything else in the universe; and involves three things — the knowledge of "myself," of something not "myself," and of the relations arising between what is "myself" and what is not "myself."

2. In order to make these relations explicit, we need a faculty to tell us that we existed yesterday, and what other faculty is this but memory? But unless we make memory to subsist in two parts, as a capacity to retain and an energy to recall, we shall not explain its workings, or be able to see in what way it is deathless.

3. The principles by which active memory works among the treasures of passive memory to recall things new and old, are called the primary and the secondary laws of association. Ideas and actions have relation to time, and connect with each other like links in a chain. Sometimes we perceive the connection between the ideas which memory recalls, at other times we do not; and yet there is some connection, just as when a row of balls is struck at one end, the force is transmitted through them, and the ball at the other end takes up the motion and the journey of the impinging ball.

4. But if memory is thus complete and deathless — as without doubt it is — some one may ask, "How is it possible for any to go from an imperfect life, with its imperishable record, and derive any pleasure from its contemplation?" I answer: "In the life of heaven love will predominate, and by the laws of association it will bring forth from the storehouse only such reminiscences as are pure and holy." Conclusion: In view of all this, how wise and necessary for our future happiness to fill the present life and its passing moments with kind words, upright thoughts, and useful actions. And, on the other hand, will not the memory of an evil life, if unchecked by grace and unrestrained by holy love, constitute a source of keenest misery? Will not a deathless memory work upon the quickened conscience, and gnaw like a worm that never dieth, or burn like a fire that is never quenched?

(L. O. Thompson.)

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KJV: There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

WEB: "Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.