We must take _ourselves_. It is the same 'he' who goes 'naked as
he came'; it is the same 'he' who 'came from his mother's womb,' and
is 'born again' as it were into a new life, only 'he' has by his
earthly life been developed and revealed. The plant has flowered and
fruited. What was mere potentiality has become fact. There is now
fixed character. The transient possessions, relationships, and
occupations of the earthly life are gone, but the man that they have
made is there. And in the character there are predominant habits which
insist upon having their sway, and a memory of which, as we may
believe, there is written indelibly all the past. Whatever death may
strip from us, there is no reason to suppose that it touches the
consciousness and personal identity, or the prevailing set and
inclination of our characters. And if we do indeed pass into another
life 'not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness,' but
carrying a perfected memory and clothed in a garment woven of all our
past actions, there needs no more to bring about a solemn and
continuous act of judgment.