God of my Fathers

Is there love in hell? Do the spirits of the lost remember still those whom they have left behind? And can they feel indeed an interest about their spiritual welfare? Or, are they words which do not bear upon the great point of the parable, and of which, therefore, we are not to look for any parallel in the things of life? Or, was it a mere selfishness still, that he might escape his brothers’ reproaches, when they should come to upbraid him for his bad example, that Dives said, “I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.” I incline to think that if we are to apply the words to ourselves at all, they convey to us this fact--that in that wretched world, there may spring up desires, good desires, but that it will be too late. For ever and for ever those desires may live, but never to be gratified. And who shall say what an amount of torment might lie in an eternity of impotent and unsatisfied longings? I can conceive of nothing more horrible than to have continually aspirations after something good, yet all the while the consciousness that that good, and after which we aspire, is a thing utterly and eternally impossible. ( J. Vaughan, M. A. )