SQLite format 3@  ii!%%atableTopicsTopicsCREATE TABLE Topics (Title NVARCHAR(100), Notes TEXT) UaY02 Ceaseless Activity{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fni&M)01 Rest{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 REST.\par \par "Chime on, you bells! agaYE00 Grapes of Eschol{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fon taU4$ yRQil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 GRAPES OF ESCHOL; Or,\par Gleanings from the Land of Promise; Or,\par Meditations on the Glories of Heaven\par By John MacDuff, 1861.\par \par Preface\par \par 01 Rest\par 02 Ceaseless Activity\par 03 Continual Progress\par 04 Many Mansions (part 1)\par 05 Many Mansions (part 2)\par 06 No Sickness\par 07 The Death of Death\par 08 Waking Realities\par 09 Face to Face\par 10 Unneeded Luminaries\par 11 Vision and Fruition\par 12 Locality and Character\par 13 The Mutual Joy (part 1)\par 14 The Mutual Joy (part 2)\par 15 Diverse Magnitudes\par 16 Glorified Bodies\par 17 No Temple\par 18 The Glorious Transition\par 19 The All in All\par 20 Suffering and Glory\par 21 The Marriage-supper\par 22 The Brimming Fountain\par 23 Immediate Entrance\par 24 From Glory to Glory\par 25 The Heavenly Skies\par 26 The Victor's Song\par 27 The Victor's Dress\par 28 The Nightless World\par 29 Living Fountains\par 30 Forever\par \par \par \par PREFACE\par \par By John MacDuff, 1861.\par \par Numbers 13:23-27\par When they came to what is now known as the valley of Eshcol, they cut down a cluster of grapes so large that it took two of them to carry it on a pole between them! They also took samples of the pomegranates and figs. At that time the Israelites renamed the valley Eshcol- "cluster"- because of the cluster of grapes they had cut there.\par After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the people of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. This was their report to Moses: "We arrived in the land you sent us to see, and it is indeed a magnificent country\emdash a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit as proof."\par \par  "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him." 1 Cor. 2:9\par \par Speculative discussion, attractive illustration, or the systematic treatment of a great theme, will not be found in these pages. They consist mainly of simple meditations on the glories of a Future World\emdash fragmentary thoughts and reflections, written with special reference to the chamber of sickness, the couch of suffering, and the home of bereavement.\par \par Nothing surely can so cheer the fainting believer, bowed down with sin and sorrow, as the prospect of Heavenly bliss. It is the thought of the joy in the morning of immortality which dries earth's bitterest tears. The heart of the child leaps at the sight of his Father's house. The lights in the distant windows cannot fail to revive his spirit and quicken his footsteps.\par \par The following are a few such distant rays from "the Excellent Glory"\emdash a few GRAPES gathered by Faith an d Hope, the two spies from the true Canaan\emdash a few Pisgah-glimpses of its Vineyards and Oliveyards. Glimpses, indeed, only they are\emdash at best fitful and transient; for even the mount of faith is oftentimes wreathed with clouds and vapors, dimming to the brightest vision its views of the future. But shadowy and indistinct as at best they must be, they may help us the better to descend the Valley, complete our warfare, and, finally, with our pilgrim-staff, "to pass over this Jordan," (Gen. 32:10) By revealing a distant view of the crown, we may be enabled the more cheerfully to bear the cross.\par \par "The very hope we have of Heaven, works wonderful joy in the heart of a Christian. David did not live to see the glory of Solomon's temple, but he made provision for it, and cast the model of it, and he took much delight in the contemplation of what it would be. Here are some sparks, some beginnings of the Glory of Heaven, and of that great joy which we shall have hereafter." (Usher, 1638. )\par \par The night-watch, with some whose eyes may trace these pages, cannot now be long. Already the gray streaks of morning may be telling that they are "nearing sunrise." New strains of celestial music may be wafted from the half-opened portal\emdash new voices from the spirit-land heard saying, "Come up here." "Strangers and pilgrims" on the earth! let your thoughts be in Heaven. Let the gaps and cracks which trial, in its varied forms, may have made in the walls of your frail earthly tabe rnacle, only serve to let the rays of the ineffable glory steal more brightly through. May these feeble foretastes quicken your longings for the full and gladsome fruition.\par \par It will be seen that the Meditations have been numbered, so as to extend over a month, in case any should desire to use them as Daily Readings. There has been no attempt to link the chapters together by any train of consecutive thought. Each, purposely short, is independent of what precedes or follows. The reader may, moreover, find similar ideas or reflections more than once reappearing. But as the grand leading characteristics of Heavenly happiness, revealed in Scripture, are comparatively few, such repetition (in the case of a devotional series) was, to a certain extent, unavoidable; and by those who read for profit, not for criticism, will be readily understood and forgiven.\par \par "Thus take your heart into the 'Land of Promise.' Show it the pleasant hills and fruitful valleys: Show it THE CLUSTERS OF GRAPES which you have gathered; to convince it that it is a Blessed Land, flowing with better than milk and Honey." \emdash Richard Baxter, (1615)\par \par "The milk and the honey is beyond this wilderness. God be merciful to you; and grant, that you be not slothful to go in to possess the land."\par "They had the City itself in view; and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, to welcome them Thereunto." \emdash John Bunyan, (1628)\par \par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } in begin,\par And ring the Sabbath morning in.\par The laborer's week-day work is done,\par The rest begun\par Which Christ has for His people won."\par \par "There remains therefore a REST to the people of God."\emdash Heb. 4:9.\par \par How sweet the music of this first heavenly chime floating across the waters of death from the towers of the new Jerusalem!\par \par Pilgrim, faint under your long and arduous pilgrimage, hear it! It is REST. Soldier, carrying still upon you the blood and dust of battle, hear it! It is REST. Voyager, tossed on the waves of sin and sorrow, driven here and there on the world's heaving ocean of vicissitude, hear it! The haven is in sight! The very waves that are breaking on the shore seem to murmur\emdash "So gives He His beloved REST." It is the long-drawn sigh of existence at last answered. The toil and travail of earth's protracted week is at an end. The calm of its unbroken Sabbath is begun. Man, weary man, has found at last the long-sought-for rest in the bosom of his God!\par \par This Heavenly Rest will be a rest from SIN.\par \par Sin is the great disturber of the moral universe. The world\emdash the soul\emdash was once like an Aeolian harp; every passing zephyr woke it into melody. Now it is tuneless, unstrung; its notes dissonant and harsh. Not until the Sabbatic morning of heaven dawns, will the old harmonies be restored. Joyful anticipation! perfect and entire emancipation, not only from all temptation without, but from all bias to evil within. No latent principle of corruption\emdash no depressing consciousness of inherent sin\emdash no germinating seeds or roots that can develop themselves into fruit\emdash no languid frames\emdash no guilty fears and apprehensions\emdash no sorrowful estrangements from that Love whose smile is heaven\emdash a rest from Satan's deceitful wiles and insidious snares\emdash these no longer felt or feared. What more can be needed? A rest from sin, and a rest in God. As the needle in the compass, after many tremulous vibrations, at last settles in steady repose in the direction of its pole, so the redeemed spirit\emdash all its tremblings, and faintings, and fitful aberrations at an end\emdash shall remain, with its refined energies, its ennobled powers, and purified aspirations undeviatingly fixed and centered on Jehovah Himself. Its eternal motto will be\emdash "This is my rest forever."\par \par Heaven will be a Rest from all DOUBT and ERROR.\par \par Here on earth, how much there is of darkness and uncertainty! The volume of the Divine ways is a mysterious volume. As the breath dims the window-pane in looking out on the fairest landscape, so the breath on the windows of sense and sight often obscures the glory of the moral landscape, causing us to exclaim\emdash "Now we see through a glass darkly!" The material world around us, and the spiritual world within us, are full of enigmas which we cannot solve; much more may we expect marvels and mysteries in the ways and dealings of God\emdash "deep," great deep "judgments!"\par \par But then all will be cleared up. "In Your light shall we see light." The day will then break, and the looming murky shadows shall forever flee away. Doctrinal difficulties will be explained, apparent inconsistencies removed, withering doubts forever silenced. No more impeachments of the Divine veracity, or questionings of the Divine procedure. Looking down from the summit of the everlasting hills on the mazy windings of the earthly pilgrimage, every ransomed tongue will have the one confession\emdash "He has done all things well."\par \par The Rest of Heaven will be a rest from SORROW and SUFFERING.\par \par This is a weeping world. Deny it who may; it has its smiles, but it has as often its tears. You who have the cup of its joys fullest, be thankful while it is yours; but carry it with a trembling hand. The head that is now planning its golden projects may tomorrow be laid on the pillow of sickness, with the dim night-lamp for weary months its companion. The joyous circle, now uninvaded by the King of Terrors, may tomorrow be speaking of their "loved and lost." The towering fabric of human happiness, which is now rapidly being built, may, in the twinkling of an eye, become a mass of ruins.\par \par But if "weeping endures for the night," "joy comes in the morning." Yet a little while, mourning believer! and you will shed your last tear, heave your last pang. Once enter that peaceful haven, and not one wave of trouble shall ever afterwards roll. The very fountain of your tears will be dried. Your remembrance of all the tribulations of the nether world will be like the visions of some unquiet dream of an earthly night, which the gladsome sunshine of morning has dispelled, the confused memories of which are all that remain. "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away," (Rev. 21:4.)\par \par Here on earth, our trials are needed. The angel has to come down "to trouble the waters," in order to make us sensible of his presence. It is when the pool is disturbed we see most of our God. But in heaven, though the Great Angel will be ever present, there will be no more waters to trouble. It is "a sea of glass." The last ripple of the last murmuring billow will break upon the shores of Jordan, and "immediately" there will be "a great calm."\par \par The Rest of Heaven is a rest which REMAINS.\par \par Nothing is permanent here. The best of earthly joys are evanescent\emdash like the bubble rising to the surface of the stream, which glitters for a moment in the sunshine in its rainbow-hues, and then is gone, the place that knew it knowing it no more! But the rest above is eternal\emdash no foe can invade it, no storms can disturb it. It is the rest of a final home, over the portals of which is written, "You shall go out no more."\par \par Reader, do not pitch your tabernacle here on earth! Yours now is, or ought to be, a tent or nomad life. The Christian is an Arab in the present probation state. He has no fixed abode. His dwelling is constructed not of stones or enduring material. The rope, and the canvas, and the wooden pins, all indicate "the pilgrim and stranger on the earth."\par \par It is a wilderness rest. He must be content with wilderness provision. If you have many sources of earthly happiness, sit loosely to them. Let these rills only draw you nearer the Fountain-head\emdash let these gifts only unite you closer to the Giver. "He gave them," says Richard Baxter, "to be refreshments in your journey; and would you dwell in your inn, and go no further?" Soon He Himself\emdash your "exceeding joy"\emdash will supersede them. The rill will be no longer needed when you have the Great Source; the starlight when you have Sunlight; creature-comforts when you have the Infinite Presence.\par \par "There remains a rest!" Listen to this, child of suffering and sorrow! You who are beaten about now with "a great fight of afflictions," you will soon be at home\emdash soon with God\emdash and nothing then, evermore, to break the trance of your bliss! Every time the sounding line is let down, the response is, "Nearer shore!" Sainted ones in that spirit-world, like the birds which greet the earthly voyager as he approaches land, are hovering around you, telling that your Home is at hand\emdash that soon you shall furl your sails, and reach the desired haven. "My little bark," says one who has now realized her glowing anticipations, "is riding serenely through the storm, and soon I shall drop my anchor in the still waters of eternal rest and glory." (Mary Winslow.)\par \par The joys of the Heavenly Rest will be ENHANCED BY CONTRAST.\par \par This is one beauteous element in the contemplation of future bliss, which angels know nothing of\emdash the joy of contrast. These Blessed Beings never knew what it was t o sin or to suffer. These glorious Vessels, launched on the "summer seas of eternity," never knew what it was to wrestle with the tempest, or, like the shipwrecked apostle, to be "nights and days in the depths" of trial.\par \par The blind man exults in the blessing of restored sight, in a way which others who have never known its loss cannot experience. The sick man appreciates the return of vigorous health, in a way which others can know nothing of who have never felt its privation. The labore!r enjoys his nightly repose all the more by contrast with the hours of toil which preceded it. The soldier, after years of suffering and privation, appreciates the music of that word "home," as he never could have done unless he had undergone the terrible discipline of trench, and night-watch, and battlefield.\par \par Will it not be the same with the believer in entering on his Rest? Will not his former experience of suffering, and sin, and sorrow, enhance all his new-born joys? It is said of s"aints, that they will be "equal to the angels." But in this respect they will be superior! The angel never knew what it was to have an eye dimmed with tears, or to be covered with the soil of conflict. He never can know the exquisite beauty of that Bible picture (none but the weeping pilgrim of earth can understand or experience it) where, as the climax of heavenly bliss, God is represented as "wiping away all tears from their eyes!" Beautiful thought! The weary ones from the pilgrim-valley seated by the #calm river of life, bathing their temples\emdash laving their wounds\emdash ungirding their armor\emdash the dust of battle forever washed away\emdash and listening to the proclamation from the inner sanctuary\emdash the soft strain stealing down from the Sabbath-bells of glory\emdash "The days of your mourning are ended!" (Isa. 60:20.)\par \par Christian, has this glorious rest the place in your thoughts it ought to occupy? Are you delighting to have frequent Pisgah-glimpses of this Land of Pro$mise? Are you living as the inheritor and heir of such a blessed immortality, "declaring plainly" that you "seek a better country?"\par \par How sad, how strange, that the eye of faith should be dimmed to these glorious realities by the ephemeral and passing things of sense. Grovelers that we are! with all this wealth of glory within reach\emdash with these deathless spirits claiming to outlive all time\emdash that we should allow the seen and the temporal to eclipse the splendors of eternal day%! "Reader, look to yourself, and resolve the question; ask conscience, and allow it to tell you truly that you put your eternal rest before your eyes as the great business you have to do in this world. Have you watched and labored with all your might that no man take your crown?" (Baxter.)\par \par Sit no longer cowering in darkness when light is streaming from your Father's windows and inviting you upwards. A few more rolling suns\emdash a few more swings of Time's pendulum\emdash and the world's curfew-bell will toll, announcing the Sabbath of eternity has come. Seek rest in Christ now. Flee to the crevices of the Rock of Ages now, if you would nestle forever in the golden eaves of the eternal Temple. Be ever sitting on the edge of your nest, pluming yourself for flight\emdash so that when death comes, "with wings like a dove"\emdash the celestial plumage of faith, and hope, and love\emdash you may soar upwards to the Sabbath of your God, and be at rest FOREVER!\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } 'l\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 CEASELESS ACTIVITY.\par \par "A little while the fetters hold no more;\par The spirit long enthralled is free to soar,\par And takes its joyful flight,\par On radiant wings of light,\par Up to the throne, to labor or adore!"\par \par "They rest not day and night."\emdash Rev. 4:8.\par \par What a (seeming paradox is this! We last contemplated Heaven under the beautiful and significant figure of a state of rest\emdash here it is spoken of as a state of unrest! "They rest"\emdash "they rest not." It is what the old writers quaintly designate, "The rest without a rest." The combination of these two similitudes involves no inconsistency; they bring together two different but not antagonistic elements of earthly happiness, which will have their highest exemplification in the bliss of a perfect world. Th)e emblem suggests TWO VIEWS OF A FUTURE HEAVEN\emdash\par \par First, It is a state of ceaseless activity in the service of God.\par Constituted as we now are, a condition of listlessness and inactivity is most inimical to true happiness. Indeed, if we can judge from the references in Scripture to the constitution of higher and nobler natures, we are led to infer that activity is a great moral law among the loftiest orders of intelligent beings. Angels and archangels, cherubim and serap*him, the "burning ones and the shining ones," are "ministering spirits," engaged in untiring errands of love to redeemed man, and probably also to other provinces in God's vast empire. More, with reverence be it said, the Great God Himself is ever putting forth the unceasing activities of His omnipotence. "He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps." "My Father," said Christ, "works hitherto, and I work." It is sublimely said of Him, "He faints not, neither is weary," (Ps. 121:4; John 5:17; Isa. 40:+28.)\par \par The human spirit has the same lofty heritage. Activity is linked with pure and unsullied enjoyment. The very curse of labor and the sweat of the brow\emdash the birthright of toil\emdash is the birthright of mercy. A philosopher of ancient times said, if he had truth in his grasp, he would open his hand and let it fly away that he might enjoy the pursuit of it. Transfer this to heaven. There the law and love of activity will still be a governing principle among the spirits of the g,lorified; and in this we shall be assimilated to the "living ones," whose very name indicates the ardor of their holy being. "They rest not!" There will be no more of the lassitude and languor of earth. Here our bodies are clogs and hindrances to mental activity. There the glorified frame will be a help and auxiliary to the ecstatic soul. Here the remains of indwelling corruption is like the chained corpse which criminals of old were compelled to drag behind them. It elicits the mournful cry, "O wretched -man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7:24.) That soliloquy will be heard no more in the "better country." There, every chain will be unloosed, and the uncaged spirit soar upwards unhampered by the impediments of its earthly fetters.\par \par Glorious description! "They serve Him day and night," (Rev. 7:15.) No more pauses from weariness or faintness; no more fitful frames and feelings. It has been said of God's people in the present world, "Though they do not weary. of their Master's work, they often weary in the work." Their experience is impressively given in the Song of Solomon, when the Church, or believer in his earthly state, is represented as saying, "I sleep, but my heart wakes" (Cant. 5:2)\emdash worldly cares and business and engrossments chaining down the soul, and inducing a state of drowsy insensibility. But there, they shall not require to "lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees," (Heb.12:12;) no more waking up refreshed from the repose/ of exhausted nature\emdash no more complaining that "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," (Matt. 26:41.) If any of us have felt the pleasurableness of doing good, even in a present imperfect, chequered world, what will\emdash what must this feeling be, in a state of holy activity, with no sin or weakness to repress our ardor or dampen our energies?\par \par And let us note the chief ingredient, the grand element, in this state of ceaseless employment. It will be THE SERVICE OF GOD. "T0hey rest not day nor night," uttering the threefold ascription to a Triune-Jehovah\emdash Father, Son, and Holy Spirit\emdash "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts," (Isa. 6:3.) If activity be an essential element in true happiness, surely that happiness will be enhanced by the attractiveness of the service in which it is our privilege to be engaged. An earthly servant, possessed of an honorable nature, would feel himself obligated to perform work faithfully and conscientiously even to a bad master;1 but how would his joy in the performance of his duty be increased by the consciousness that he was serving some lofty and beneficent spirit who was an ornament to his station and revered by all? If we carry this law to the pinnacle of all greatness and moral excellence, surely here will be the crown and consummation of creature-happiness\emdash cheerful duty in the service of Him whose favor is life!\par \par What is the truest source of joy to an earthly child? Is it not by active duty, as wel2l as by passive obedience, fulfilling his parent's wishes? Will he not even suffer much for the parent he loves? The earthly relationship is in this, as in many other respects, a beautiful type of the heavenly. What pure and unsullied delight will it afford the sainted spirit to be engaged constantly in doing the will of Him who is better and kinder than the best of earthly parents! Look at Him who, being "very man" as well as "very God," understood all the tenderest sensibilities of the human heart! What3 was the great (shall we say, the only) joy which brightened the pilgrimage of the Man of Sorrows? What was the one source of purest, ineffable delight to Him, as he toiled on His blood-stained path? Was it not the elevating consciousness of doing His heavenly Father's will?\emdash "My food is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work!" (John 4:34.)\par \par We are always most willing to serve those we love most. With what bounding joy, then, shall we embark in heaven on errands4 of active service, when we shall there have unfolded to us (what we here know so little of) the unspeakable love of Him who for us spared not His own, His only Son! Oh, what a motive will there be here for all the energies of the glorified body, and all the faculties of the glorified spirit\emdash to love, and serve, and honor, and adore Him, around whom our deepest affections are centered, and our heart of hearts entwined\emdash getting ever nearer Him and more like Him\emdash gazing more intently on Hi5s matchless perfections\emdash diving more into the ocean-depths and mysteries of His love, and becoming the channels of conveyance of that love to others! Then, indeed, will duty be turned into enjoyment, and supreme and unswerving devotedness to His service be its own best reward.\par \par It will be a consecration, too, not only of unfettered, unclogged, unwearied powers; there will be the still further element of a PURE AND SINGLE-EYED DEVOTEDNESS, which earth never knew. Here, alas! in the 6holiest activities of the present state of being, there are ever, even when we ourselves may be insensible to them, the existence of mingled motives. Wretched SELF, in its thousand insidious forms, so imperceptibly creeps in, marring and mutilating our best endeavors to please God. Our best offerings are full of blemishes\emdash our best thoughts are polluted with low, groveling cares. But there, SELF will forever be dethroned. This usurping Dagon will then be broken forever in pieces before the presence 7of the true Ark, in that temple wherein "there is nothing that defiles." God's glory will then be the one grand, absorbing, and terminating object of all desires and all aspirations\emdash then, for the first time in reality, shall we come to realize and exemplify that great truth, which many from their infancy have had on their lips\emdash "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever."\par \par Thus will active and ceaseless occupation in the service of God form one of the sweet8est employments and sources of happiness in the upper sanctuary. "They rest," in a blessed absence from all sin, all suffering, all trial. "They rest not," in the lofty engagements of holiness. Believers are called in this world by the name of "servants," "workmen," "husband-men." They will still retain these same designations of active duty. "His servants," we read, "shall serve Him," (Rev. 22:3.) God, in every portion of His wide universe, seems to work by creature agency. He does not require to do so. 9A simple volition of His sovereign will would suffice to fulfill His counsels as effectually as if never an angel sped on his embassy of love! But as on earth He accomplishes His purposes in His Church by human agency, and as in Heaven He employs angelic agency\emdash those who "excel in strength" "doing His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word"\emdash so it would seem, as if in merciful consideration for the happiness of His glorified saints, He is to make this a permanent law through eter:nity; so that Heaven will be only a development of the present condition of Grace\emdash with this single, but important difference, that there will be no sin.\par \par Indeed, it is this very idea of Heaven as a state of action, that brings out the beauty of the former representation as a state of rest. Rest, to be enjoyed, supposes previous activity or labor; and although it can have no such relation in a place where weariness and fatigue are unknown, we can readily carry out the beautiful ide;a of Pollok, in his "Course of Time," of the ransomed spirit retiring from the loud hallelujahs around the throne, to hold its silent meditations apart by "the living fountains of waters"\emdash this, however, only for a time\emdash once more to return with unflagging and unabated energy to resume the song, and speed on new errands of love.\par \par Reader, is this your anticipation of Heaven?\emdash Heaven, not as it is pictured in the dreams of the sentimental or contemplative Christian\emdash< not a drowsy Mohammedan paradise\emdash a state of torpor and inaction; but as it is known to angels, who are now, though unseen to us, traveling down to our world in ceaseless agencies of love and comfort? Do we realize this, and in realizing the grand truth, are we training for these lofty duties?\emdash ready to take the angels' place, or to join the angels' company, on similar ministries to some other distant provinces of creation? What the poet has said of the present life is as true of its glorious= counterpart hereafter\emdash "Life is real, life is earnest."\par \par Rest not until you have attained a well-grounded assurance that this future state of active blessedness is to be yours\emdash that you are looking for it, preparing for it, ready for it. Test your fitness for the Heaven that is before you by the question, Do I delight now in energetic employment in the service of my God? Is prayer a season of refreshing? Does praise call into willing and gladsome exercise all the renewed af>fections of a heaven-born nature? Is the Sabbath a joyful pausing-place in life's chequered journey\emdash not a mere interlude of repose for the tired and jaded body after the incessant toils and cares of the week, but the day which summons into exercise the loftier activities of my nobler being? Do I spend it under the feeling of Eternity being an everlasting Sabbath, and that everlasting Sabbath occupied in some personal ministry of holiness and love?\par \par In this present life there shoul?d, at least, be assimilations to the life hereafter. Though not in degree, it should be the same in kind. If activity in a little child gives indication of the energy and resolution of the man, so activity in the service of God, in a state of grace, will be the pledge and earnest of nobler activities in a state of glory.\par \par "O blessed rest! when we 'rest not day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!'\emdash when we shall rest from sin, but not from worship\emdash from suffering and sorrow, but not from joy! O blessed day! when I shall rest with God\emdash when I shall rest in knowing, loving, rejoicing, and praising!\emdash when my perfect soul and body shall together perfectly enjoy the most perfect God\emdash when God, who is love itself, shall perfectly love me, and rest in His love to me, and I shall rest in my love to Him\emdash when He shall rejoice over me with joy, and joy over me with singing, and I shall rejoice in Him." (Baxter.)\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } A8\f0\fs24 CONTINUAL PROGRESS.\par \par "Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,\par Is our destined end or way;\par But to act that each tomorrow\par Finds us further than today."\par \par "They rest not day and night."\emdash Rev. 4:8.\par \par We have already regarded this description of the Redeemed in heaven\emdash "They rest not"\emdash as denoting a condition of ceaseless employment in the service of God. We may consider it now as suggesting a state ofB CONTINUAL PROGRESS.\par \par If we have found activity to be a law of our nature, we may assert the same, with equal truth, with reference to progress. The mind is ever aspiring after advancement. "Not as though I had already attained," is the utterance not merely of the renewed spiritual nature\emdash it is the voice of man's restless spirit in all the varied phases and conditions of humanity. It is exemplified in everyday life. Without the consciousness of advancement we have not a perfect idCea of happiness.\par \par Who does not feel, for example, a ceaseless and ever-increasing aspiration after more knowledge? This is all the more remarkable, too, in the case of those who have made the largest acquisitions in human learning. The range of their acquirements, instead of satisfying, seems rather to whet their appetite for more; so that the noblest and most gifted of the human species\emdash our Lockes, and Bacons, and Newtons\emdash are those who are alike most conscious of the limitDed range of present knowledge, and most ardently desirous of adding to their intellectual wealth.\par \par Transfer this to heaven. In heaven, there will be a constant aspiration after increased knowledge, holiness, love, and resemblance to God. All our present mental capacities will doubtless be indefinitely expanded on our entrance into bliss; but this will be only a fresh starting-point for loftier acquisitions. The soul and its glorified aspirations will be like the sun "coming forth from hiEs chamber, and rejoicing like a strong man to run his race;" ever climbing the skies, yet never reaching the meridian; coming nearer and nearer "the excellent glory," and yet still speaking of it as "light inaccessible!"\par \par We have some pledge or foretaste given us of this advancement, even in our present spiritual state. The renewed man goes "from strength to strength;" he advances in the divine life; he becomes more and more "fit," by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, for the heFavenly inheritance. May we not warrantably infer from analogy, that this advancement will not be arrested, but rather increased and carried on in a mightier magnitude? "If grace," says the author of the "Saint's Rest," "makes a Christian differ so much from what he was, as to say, 'I am not the man I was;' how much more will glory make us differ! Doubtless as God advances our senses and enlarges our capacity, so will He advance the happiness of those senses, and fill up with Himself all that capacity."\paGr \par Add to all this\emdash this element of progression will be in one direction. Not as on earth, where there was also a law of perpetual progress, but it was often a downward progress\emdash where the aphorism, "Knowledge is power," had, alas! too often the fatal interpretation attached to it of a power for evil; not bringing the heart nearer God, but assimilating it more with the fiend, enlarging the intellect only for its degradation. But the advancement of the soul, in all the future phasHes of its moral and spiritual being, will be entirely God-wards.\emdash It will be the eagle's flight, soaring ever upward, nearer the sun, until lost in the blaze of "the excellent glory."\par \par God is alone of all beings unchangeable. He is as incapable of any addition to His essential glory and happiness, as these are incapable of detraction.\emdash "He is without variableness or the least shadow of turning," (James 1:17.) The devils in a lost state are subject to a continual and progressiIve change, but it is a downward and progressive deterioration; with the sainted spirit it will be entirely improvement. While the others are sinking deeper and deeper in the abyss of woe, or retreating into wider and more bizarre orbits from the great central Sun of all light and happiness, the redeemed will ever be narrowing their orbits, coming nearer and nearer the great central throne.\par \par Reader, you are lisping here only the alphabet of knowledge; you know nothing as you are yet to knJow. Heaven will be, in a nobler sense than ever was realized on earth, a student life. The angels, we read, "desire to look into" the mysteries of salvation. They "stoop over" (as the word literally means) this vast volume in the archives of eternity. You will then unite with these principalities and powers in tasking your immortal intellect with fresh discoveries of "the manifold wisdom of God." We know that those saints on earth who have attained most knowledge of God, are those who have longed with greKatest ardor to know more of Him. Though Moses had seen more of His glory than others, his prayer is, "I beseech you, show me your glory," (Exodus 33:18.) David, whose thirst had been quenched more than most at the Fountain of infinite love and excellence, is heard exclaiming, "My soul thirsts for God," (Psalm 42:2.) Paul, who had soared to the third heaven, and who "counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ," (Phil. 3:8,) still prays, like a lisping learner, "that I may knoLw Him," (Phil. 3:10)\par \par Nor will it be one theme only that will engross and engage the saints' glorified powers and activities. We must not think of Heaven as some startling and violent revolution of present tastes, and studies, and occupations; as if we shall then be no longer the beings we once were, and be able to find no traces of personal identity. Our feelings, our tastes, our studies, may possibly and will possibly continue the same as they were, only glorified, sanctified, and puriMfied from the dross of sin! In heaven, may we not possibly delight still to unravel the mysteries of science, the laws which govern a renovated creation; or to ponder the story of Providence past\emdash this, too, not confined to one atom-world, but as unfolded in God's works and ways in other provinces of His empire?\par \par The very feelings and affections, also, of our present nature (the best, at least, and noblest of them) will not be quenched or annihilated; they will, on the contrary, haNve vaster objects and loftier spheres for their exercise. Take, for example, apparently the most airy and visionary of all our present emotions, HOPE. Hope will not perish with the present preliminary state. Poetry, under a beautiful impersonation, has truthfully represented her as relighting her torch "at nature's funeral pile." It is, in one sense indeed, true, that Hope will then be changed into fruition; all distracting fears and misgivings will cease. The hope of eternal life, the hope full of immortOality, the hope of being with God and His Christ, which in our moments of depression and faithlessness was clouded here, that hope will be "swallowed up" in complete fulfillment. But many of the present joyous elements of hope will still remain\emdash the hope of reaching higher degrees of perfection, the hope of acquiring deeper and yet deeper views of the character and glory of Him who is past finding out; the hope of becoming more and more assimilated to His holy image, climbing higher and higher the aPltitudes of bliss, and obtaining a wider and still wider sweep of the moral landscape that grows upon our view with the widening horizon.\par \par I love that beautiful description of Heaven, as the "rest" of God's people; when the clarion-call of battle is hushed\emdash every storm-cloud past\emdash every weary night-watch at an end\emdash the spirit cradled in perfect peace\emdash the Sabbath of eternity! But more elevating and glorious still seems the description of Heaven as a place of endless and ceaseless progression; the spirit making giant advances in all that is pure, and lovely, and godlike; ever adding to the domain of knowledge; having new and more wondrous revelations of the Divine character and attributes\emdash comprehending more and more the mysteries and secrets of Redeeming love, and yet these mysteries growing with every fresh discovery; still speaking of its "heights and depths," its "lengths and breadths," and these as "passing understanding!"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } LBLUaY02 Ceaseless Activity{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fni&M)01 Rest{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 REST.\par \par "Chime on, you bells! agaYE00 Grapes of Eschol{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fn +gqm04 Many Mansions (part 1){\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttS aA03 Continual Progress{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang205@Tbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 MANY MANSIONS.\par \par "All our earthly journey past,\par Every tear and pain gone by,\par Here together met at last,\par In the mansions of the sky,\par Each the welcome 'Come' awaits,\par Conqueror over death and sin;\par Lift your heads, O golden gaUtes,\par Let the ransomed travelers in!"\par \par "In my Father's house there are many mansions." \emdash John 14:2.\par \par "Mansions"\emdash "many mansions"\emdash "a house"\emdash "my Father's house." How many reflections are crowded into this one brief utterance of our gracious Redeemer! With what a homelike aspect do they invest our every thought of Heaven! They were among His last words; He Himself was on His way to that peaceful "homestead" of which He speaks. Let us gVather around Him, with the house of His Father in sight, and taste this Eschol grape which He Himself plucks from the borders of the Heavenly Canaan.\par \par The verse speaks of MULTIPLICITY\emdash "many mansions."\par Had He been addressing His own disciples alone, the assurance would have been sufficient, "There will be a home for each of you." But He is discoursing for all time. His omniscient eye discerned at that moment the unborn myriads whom this chapter and this verse were to cWonsole and cheer. He would, therefore, certify that there is abundant provision made for all\emdash patriarchs, prophets, saints, martyrs\emdash from the time that righteous Abel bent alone, a righteous, redeemed saint, before the throne\emdash the first sheaf of a mighty harvest\emdash until the garners be filled, and the song of the ransomed become "as the voice of many people, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings," (Rev. 19:6.) He is to bring "many sons unto glory."\pXar \par There is grace for all\emdash crowns for all\emdash mansions for all! Heaven has been filling for six thousand years, and still there is room. How different its "recompense of reward" from worldly crowns and worldly honors! In the earthly race "many run, but one (only) receives the prize," (1 Cor. 9:24.) In the heavenly the competition is open to "whoever will." There is no jarring of interests in this loftier arena. The glorification of one is not attained there at the expense of anotheYr's downfall or exclusion. The mansions are many. The candidates are a mighty multitude which no man can number. Believer! "so run that you may obtain!"\par \par The verse speaks of PERMANENCY\emdash they are "mansions."\par The word in the original is not a tent or temporary tabernacle, but a durable residence, never to be altered or demolished. Eothen, the most graphic of Eastern travelers thus gives a description of tent-life, which, by contrast, affords the best illustration of the Zmansion-life of heaven: "When the cold, sullen morning dawned, and my people began to load the camels, I always felt loth to give back to the waste this little spot of ground, that had glowed for a while with the cheerfulness of a human dwelling. My tent was spared to the last, but when all else was ready for the start, then came its fall. The pegs were drawn, the canvas shivered, and in less than a minute there was nothing that remained of my genial home, but only a pole and a bundle."\par \par [ "The tents of the East," says Professor Hackett, "seldom remain long in the same place. The traveler erects his temporary abode for the night, takes it down in the morning, and journeys onward. The shepherds of the country are also always moving from one place to another. The brook fails on which they relied for water, or the grass required for the support of their flocks is consumed, and they wander on to a new station."\par \par How strikingly illustrative is this of the Bible figure, "the ho\use of our earthly tabernacle" being "dissolved" (or taken down), (2 Cor. 5:1.) The framework of mortality, like the Arab tent, is upreared for a time, but, after subserving its temporary purpose, it is, pin by pin, demolished, and the place that once knew it knows it no more.\par \par Not so the ever-enduring mansions of our Father's house. They are "incorruptible" and "eternal in the heavens." No failing of brooks there! No joys withered and smitten there, like the grass of the wilderness. "Th]e Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and lead them to living fountains of waters," (Rev. 7:17.) Ah! it is the saddest, the most humiliating feature of the joys of earth, that, however pure, noble, elevating they may be at the moment, there is no calculating on their permanency. The mind will, in spite of itself, be haunted with the dark possibility of the ruthless invader of all happiness coming and dashing the full cup in a thousand fragments on the ground. In Heaven no shadow of vi^cissitude or change can ever enter to dim an ever-brightening future. Once within that heavenly fold, we are in the fold forever. On the lintels of the eternal mansion are inscribed the words, "You shall go no more out." Our happiness and joy will be as immutable and stable as everlasting love and power and faithfulness can make them.\par \par The verse speaks of DIVERSITY\emdash there are "many mansions;"\emdash not only many in number, but manifold in their degrees of glory.\par \par _ All will be happy. A halo of unutterable bliss and glory will encircle each separate dwelling, beyond what eye has seen, or ear heard, or heart conceived. But as "one star differs from another star in glory," so, also, we have reason to believe, there will be gradations in the scale of future blessedness.\par \par The allusion here is evidently to the different courts of the Jewish temple. These were diverse in name and character. The outer and inner courts, the court of the Gentiles, the court`s of the priests, the Holy of Holies. All these were consecrated as portions of the same "House of the Lord." The lowliest Israelite was within sight of the altar, and within hearing of the High Priest's benediction. But there were some courts more hallowed and glorious than others\emdash their sacredness increasing the nearer the worshiper approached the place where dwelt the mystic Shekinah. It will be the same with the "many mansions" of the Heavenly Temple. All the vast multitude in the new Jerusalem awill be within range of the benediction of the Great High Priest; and as such they must be blessed.\par \par But there will be "inner courts" and enclosures of greater honor and glory. The more intense and exalted his love and devotedness on earth, the nearer will the believer be permitted to approach the Holiest of all\emdash the nearer admission will he have to the Father's presence, and receive the more distinguishing badges of the Father's love. There will be one mansion for him whose pound bhas "gained five pounds," and another mansion for him whose pound has "gained ten pounds." Each, too, will be apportioned according to some earthly antecedents. There will be the special mansion of the martyr, who was borne from his earthly tent in the chariot of fire. There will be the special mansion of the missionary, who surrendered home, ease, worldly honor, in his noble embassy, and stood alone and unbefriended on Pagan shores, witnessing for a despised Savior. There will be the mansion for the minicster of Christ, who boldly proclaimed the message of life and death. There will be the mansion for the Sabbath-school teacher, who toiled to bring youthful trophies to the foot of the cross. There will be the mansion for the pining sufferer, who glorified God by patience and unmurmuring resignation\emdash for the child, that fell on earth a withered blossom, whose tent was taken down "while it was yet day," but reconstructed into a building of God eternal in the heavens. There will be a mansion for the oldd veteran of the cross, the champion in a hundred battles of the faith; and for the youthful soldier, who was only buckling on his armor when summoned from the earthly struggle.\par \par The least in the kingdom, I repeat, will have blessedness to the full\emdash a glory and a joy which leaves no void or vacuum. As in the terrestrial, so in the celestial skies. Though every planet circling round the Sun of Deity will shine with a borrowed splendor, yet the larger the planet, and the nearer its oerbit is to its grand center, the greater will be its radiance and glory. Though every flower will in itself be perfect, reflecting the lovely hues and tints of heaven, yet they will be of diverse form and color. Some will diffuse a sweeter fragrance, or cluster in larger and richer groups than others. But all, large and small, the saint a hundred years old and the child translated in infancy, will (notwithstanding this diversity) have the same quality of bliss. The planet at the outskirts of the heavenly fsphere and that nearest the center will be bathed in one and the same rays of ineffable glory.\par \par But while the verse speaks of Diversity, it speaks also of UNITY.\par There will be diversity in unity, and unity in diversity. The Church triumphant is one house. The Church on earth, alas! is a house divided against itself\emdash church divided against church\emdash Christian against Christian. Nominally the children of one Father, but dwelling in separate tabernacles. One saying, "gI am of Paul," and another, "I of Apollos." Nominally pilgrims on one road, traversing the same wilderness, but each keeping his own peculiar and separate pathway, journeying on often with no look of kindly recognition exchanged, as if they were aliens and foreigners, instead of brethren and sisters in a common Lord.\par \par But in yonder bright and happy home, discord, division, separation will be known no more. Once within that sacred portal, the exclamation will pass from tongue to tongue\emhdash "What! so long together on the pilgrimage, and maintaining a cold and chilling reserve and alienation! Alas! is it only now we are to begin to know what we should have known ages ago, 'how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!'"\par \par You who are mourning over these sad estrangements in the Church of God, rejoice at this glorious prospect. All shall be one then! One house\emdash one home\emdash one Father\emdash one Elder Brother\emdash one motive for praise\emdash one theme for eternal song\emdash a united Church under its one glorious and glorified Head!\par \par "At Home with Jesus! He who went before,\par For His own people Mansions to prepare;\par The soul's deep longings stilled, its conflicts o'er,\par All rest and blessedness with Jesus there.\par What Home like this can the wide earth afford?\par So shall we be forever with the Lord.'"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } jimage\emdash\par Heaven is my home!\par \par And Time's wild wintry blast\par Soon shall be overpast;\par I shall reach Home at last\emdash\par Heaven is my home!"\par \par "In my Father's house there are many mansions."\emdash John 14:2.\par \par In our last, we considered the "many mansions" of coming glory as betokening Multiplicity; Permanency; Diversity; Unity.\par \par Let us revert to the same figure, as still further suggekstive of SAFETY.\par Where can a child be so safe as in his Father's house? Trials, buffetings, discouragements, unkindness he may experience elsewhere; here at least he is secure and happy.\par \par What music is there even on earth in that word "Home!" The garner of happiness\emdash the haunt of tender affections\emdash the cherisher of bright hope\emdash the hallowed spot where the spent spirit's weary wing folds itself to rest\emdash the glad retreat in "the dark and cloudy day." Whlat must be the Home of Heaven? With what surpassing tenderness does that one word invest these many mansions, "My Father's house!" and how does it link us to the Savior, when He thus addresses each heavenward and homeward-bound pilgrim\emdash "My Father and your Father, my God and your God!" (John 20:17.)\par \par To enter Heaven, the dwelling-place of the great Jehovah\emdash to be ushered into the presence-chamber of "the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity!"\emdash there might be much tom awe and overwhelm the spirit in such a contemplation. But this beauteous home-word deprives it of all its dreadfulness, and invests it with all that is winning and captivating. Each believer, in the prospect of these bright mansions, may, without irreverence, adopt the words of the Redeemer, and say, "If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto my Father."\par \par Would that we oftener realized Heaven as such; and, amid earth's troubles and vicissitudes and sorrows, were led nto regard every new trial, every new epoch of existence, every returning week and month and anniversary, as fresh chimes of celestial music floating from the towers of glory, and sounding in our ears, "Nearer home, nearer home!" Our Lord has taught us, while we "desire" in our daily prayer "a better country," to make it a filial aspiration\emdash "Our Father, who is in heaven," "Your kingdom come." Heaven, in the noblest sense, is "the Church in the House," (Col. 4:15.)\par \par The verse still ofurther speaks of HONOR.\par It speaks of admission into God's presence, and to stand in that presence in the relation of children to a father. Even to be laid, like Lazarus, at the portals of heaven, and fed with the crumbs falling from the table, would have been more than what, as sinners, we deserve. What will it be to be "within the house," honored with a place at the King's own banquet?\par \par There are two Greek words used in the New Testament to describe the believer's relationp to God. Both are significant. The former literally means a slave, and such His redeemed child really is. He is the willing slave of righteousness, "bought with a price" by a gracious Master. He feels it to be alike his highest honor and obligation to be called "the servant of God." The other word, though translated by the same term, (servant,) has a higher meaning. It has rather reference to the believer's heavenly calling. It speaks of His lofty designation and employment in His Father's house, when He qbecomes a "ministering one," (John 12:26.) His earthly service is over\emdash "Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends," (John 15:15.)\par \par "In my Father's house!" "Yes," said a dying believer, as he quoted these words; "our Lord tells me, You have been an out-door servant long enough, I will now make you an in-door servant, and take you out of the wind and rain, to give you a glorified body and better wages and a better mansion."\par \par What a wondrous transition from thre clay tenement to the everlasting mansions! Well may the poet exclaim, describing the emancipated spirit\emdash\par \par "O change! O wondrous change!\par Burst are the prison-bars\emdash\par This moment there\emdash so low,\par In mortal prayer\emdash and now,\par Beyond the stars!\par \par "O change! stupendous change!\par There lies the senseless clod\emdash\par The soul from bondage breaks,\par The new immortal wakes,\spar Awakes with God!"\par \par Finally, the verse tells us that all these wondrous home-mansions JESUS has gone to make ready for us.\par \par "I go to prepare a place for you." No, more, He confers them as a right. He speaks as the "Heir of all things." Observe, it is not "your Father's house," but "my Father's house." As "the Son of the everlasting God," He seems to say, "I am not ashamed to call you brethren; and for my sake He will not be ashamed to own and welcome you as tsons and daughters. My name, as 'the Beloved of the Father,' and my work, as the surety Redeemer, will form a passport and title to every room in these paternal halls!"\par \par The value of a gift is enhanced by the character and worth of the donor. The gift of an earthly sovereign would be highly prized. Here is a gift bestowed by the "Prince of the kings of the earth," purchased by blood and toil and agony. These blood-bought mansions form the crown and consummation of all His other gifts. "Tuhis is THE gift, that God has given us eternal life, and that life is in His Son." "Everything else that He 'did and taught and suffered,' had a reference to the opening of the kingdom of heaven to all believers. His coming from heaven was to show heaven to us. His going again there was to prepare a place for us. His sitting at the right hand of God is to promote our interest in heaven. His coming in judgment is to take us back with Him to it." (Manton.)\par \par If He has gone "to prepare this vplace" for us, be it ours to endeavor to be prepared for "the place;" seeking every returning morning to have our tent pitched "a day's march nearer home"\emdash nearer the house of our Father. "Yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry," (Heb. 10:37.) "He will not stay," says Goodwin, "a minute longer than needs must. He tarries only until He has, throughout all ages, by His intercession, prepared every room for each saint, that He may entertain them altogether, and have thwem all about Him."\par \par And shall we pause to ask, Where is that glorious home? where these sparkling waters, these palms ever green, these robes ever bright? Does the spirit at the hour of death wing its arrowy flight to some distant province of creation? Or may Heaven be some mysterious, impalpable spirit-world around us? Though we hear no gush of the crystal waters, and gaze on no "city of the crystal sea," may it not be that angel-wings are hovering over us, and that it is only these dulxl senses of ours that hide from us the celestial vision?\par \par But what though we can observe no dim outline of the everlasting hills? What though we look in vain for the lights gleaming in the distant windows of these "many mansions? " It is enough to know that One has gone to prepare them for us. And when completed, His voice will be heard, saying, "Come, for all things are ready!" "THEN shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of THEIR FATHER," (Matt. 13:43.)\par \par "Here in an inn a stranger dwelt,\par Here joy and grief by turns he felt:\par Poor dwelling, now we close your door!\par The talk is o'er,\par The sojourners return no more.\par \par "Now of a lasting Home possest,\par He goes to seek a better rest.\par Yes, for each saint does Christ prepare\par A place with care;\par Your Home is waiting, brother, there!"\par \par \par \par \par \par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } 3q05 Many Mansions (part 2){\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 MANY MANSIONS.\par \par "What though the tempest rage\emdash\par Heaven is my home!\par Short is my pilgri{0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 NO SICKNESS.\par \par "But anguish no more fetters you,\par For now you are awake and free;\par And as on your enraptured sight\par Bursts that new world of living light,\par Through every nerve what rapture thrills,\par And all your inmost being fills!"\par \emdash Tholuck's "Hours of Devotion."\par \par "The inhabitant shall not say,| I am sick."\emdash Isaiah 33:24.\par \par Suffering believers, laid on beds of languishing, can alone appreciate the sweetness of this gleaning from the Eschol-clusters. How many of God's children are at this moment tossed on couches of distress, shut out from the light and sunshine of a busy world, their experience that of the afflicted patriarch of Uz\emdash "I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed unto me. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the }night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day," (Job 7:3, 4.)\par \par But in yonder bright world of purity and love, "there shall be no more pain," (Rev. 21:4.) How often on the earthly sick-bed is the patient grateful for a single hour's release from oppressive suffering! What will it be in that glorious land where not so much as one pang shall ever be experienced! Here, how much is present happiness clouded by real or imaginary apprehensions. How often are th~e strong and robust and vigorous haunted with the dread that their strength may be prostrated. Even when life's sun is shining most brightly, the intrusive thought will steal across the spirit, that this lease of long health may not always last. How often, too, have these foreshadowings been too truthfully verified; either we ourselves laid low with sickness, or else brought to watch with agonizing anxiety by the couch of some beloved relative! Oh, the blessedness of a world where the fear of fearful things will be unknown\emdash where nothing shall ruffle our deep, everlasting repose! No Lazarus can be laid at Heaven's gate, "full of sores." No sunny countenance in a moment shrouded with paleness. No elastic step arrested with the spoiler's touch, and the brightness of morning changed into the shadow of death. The suffering caused by accident, the infirmities of age, the decay of intellectual vigor, the oppression on the spirit by sudden bereavement\emdash all will be strange in that unsuffering state.\par \par We know that sickness, in addition to its own attendant pain and uneasiness, unfits both mind and body for active duty and service. The emaciated, languid invalid is like the wounded bird struggling with disabled wing in the furrow, and attempting, in vain, its former joyous soaring. But in Heaven nothing can weaken or impair the immortal energies. No longer will the renovated framework be the prey of disease, or subject to decay. No longer will there arise feverish anxieties about others; those moments of dread suspense that seem more like hours, when life, and all that life counts dear, is "balanced in a breath." Over the earthly portals is written, "We have the sentence of death in ourselves," (2 Cor. 1:9.) Over the gate of heaven, "Neither shall they die any more," (Luke 20:36.)\par \par And how will this exemption from present experiences of suffering and pain be secured? How will the new heavens and the new earth give forth no longer, as here, a plaintive "miserere?" Let the words following our motto-verse explain, "The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity." It is Sin which has made this world of ours dim with weeping. The glimmering lamp in every sufferer's chamber reads, in its sickly hue, the sad tale of transgression. It is sin that is forcing from his lips the plaintive soliloquy, "Would God it were evening! would God it were morning!" (Deut. 28:67.) Here, and by reason of sin, the body is, in its every pore and muscle, susceptible of pain. Its nervous fibers can, in a moment, become chords of anguish. Science may be profuse of her inventions to mitigate disease in its thousand insidious forms, but still "the head will be sick," "the heart faint," the body bowed down with suffering, the healthy cheek furrowed with age; "the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves," (Eccles. 12:3.)\par \par All the marvels and mysteries of the healing arts in vain can stem the tide of distress, quicken the ebbing pulses of life, ward off the bitter parting, or reanimate the silent ashes. Gourds are still withering; buds of promise are still drooping to decay; the wail of anguished humanity is as loud as ever. Not until the morning of a sinless immortality dawn, will the tongue of the sufferer be tuned to the better melody\emdash "The days of our mourning are forever ended."\par \par Happy, happy prospect! "The inhabitant shall no more say, I am sick." You who are now laid on beds of languishing and pain, listen to this. Now, as the shadows of each returning evening begin to fall, you may have nothing but gloomy anticipations. The morrow's light, which brings health and joy to a busy world, may bring nothing to you but fresh prostration and anguish. Sabbath comes round, but its once joyous bells ring only in your ears the memory of forfeited joys\emdash the lonely bird, still pining in its earthly cage, wailing, in muffled notes, "Oh that I could flee away from this weary prison-house of sorrow and pain, and be at rest!"\par \par Yes! but that rest is at hand. Soon will you mount on eagle's wings to these golden gates. Pilgrims, now often pacing along the wilderness-path with bleeding feet and fevered brow, the thorny path will soon be over. No more pain to harass you. No more "archers" to wound you. No more languor to depress you. "The former things shall have passed away." How will one moment in that sorrowless heaven lead you to forget your present long experience of prostration and suffering! It will appear in the retrospect only as the shadow of a passing cloud\emdash a dream of the night which the morning light has dispelled\emdash voices on all sides sounding in your ears, "There shall be no more curse," (Rev. 22:3.)\par \par Meanwhile, as you lie tossing on your sickbed, do not ask\emdash "Am I getting the better of my pain?" But ask\emdash "Am I made the better for it? Is it executing the great mission for which it has been sent of God? Is it sanctifying me, purging away the dross, and fitting me for glory?" He has some wise end in view in laying you upon the bed of languishing. Sickness is one of His own chosen messengers\emdash one of the arrows of His quiver. As the mother lavishes her tenderest affection on her invalid child, so may it be truthfully said regarding the suffering believer, "Lord, he whom you love is sick," (John 11:3.) He takes you apart by yourself\emdash secludes you from the world, that through the rips of your shattered earthly tabernacle He may give you glimpses of coming glory. When your tongue is "failing you for thirst," He brings grapes, plucked by His own hand, from Canaan. Your soul, like that of aged Jacob, revives!\par \par How often has the couch of suffering thus been made as the very gate of heaven. Be assured you will yet come to acknowledge infinite mercy in this very discipline. In preparing to transplant His own tree to paradise\emdash instead of cutting you down, or wrenching you up by the roots, hurrying you away without a note of warning into an unprovided-for eternity\emdash He is pruning branch by branch, that you may fall gently. He is "purging you, that you may bring forth more fruit," (John 15:2.) Seek to exhibit the grace of patience under your trial. This is one of the few Christian virtues which can only be manifested on earth. In Heaven there is no suffering to call forth its exercise. "Let patience" now therefore "have its perfect work."\par \par Seek to feel that the end your God has in these "light afflictions" is to work out for you "a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory," (2 Cor. 4:17.) Tossed on this troubled sea, let the eye and the longings of faith frequently rest on the quiet haven. "Oh, the blessed tranquillity of that region," says Richard Baxter, Himself no stranger to a couch of prolonged distress\emdash "where there is nothing but sweet, continued peace! O healthful place where none are sick! O happy land, where all are kings! O holy assembly, where all are priests! How free a state, where none are servants but to their supreme Monarch! O my soul, bear with the infirmities of your earthly tabernacle! It will be thus but a little while. The sound of my Redeemer's feet is even at the door."\par \par "And heaven has rest\emdash the Sabbath of the sky!\par No weary feet shall walk the world on high;\par No tear of trouble falls\par Within those jasper walls\emdash\par To gain this rest for me did Jesus die."\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } }}a-07 The Death of Death{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\EEU06 No Sickness{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\greenzf0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE DEATH OF DEATH.\par \par "See the haven full in view,\par Love divine shall bear you through.\par Saints in glory, perfect made,\par Wait your passage through the shade.\par Ardent for your coming o'er,\par See, they throng the blissful shore!"\par \par "He shall swallow up death in victory."\emdash Isa. 25:8.\par \par Victory is a cheering word! Joyous is the return to their own land of a band of warriors after a long and triumphant campaign. Inspiriting are the hosannas of welcome poured upon them by an applauding country; and sweeter still the music of home-voices. The memory of past toil and suffering is forgotten, or remembered only to enhance the gladness of reunion!\par \par What shall it be when the Christian, freed from the last conflict, enters the gates of the Heavenly City, the hosannas of angels and saints resounding through the streets of the new Jerusalem! Each toil-worn warrior bathing his wounds in the river of the water of life\emdash death-divided friends gathered to welcome him to his everlasting home!\par \par Looking back from the heights of glory on earth's long battle-field; it is a gloomy and chequered retrospect of stern foes, stubborn temptations, mountains of difficulties that had to be climbed, valleys of humiliation that had to be descended\emdash yes, and the sadder memory of unwatchfulness and betrayal, temporary defeat and disaster. But all is now crowned with "VICTORY," and the last and most recent foe\emdash Death itself\emdash disarmed.\par \par How great the contrast NOW and THEN!\par \par Now, alas! Death is the unsparing invader of every household; all our precautions, all our wisest human expedients in vain are employed to disarm him of his power, and arrest his advancing footsteps. He reigns on earth with a frightful force! He comes in the hour least expected\emdash often just when the fondest visions of earthly joy are being realized.\par \par Do we think of it\emdash we who may be living all careless and thoughtless, lulled by the dream of prosperity, presuming on our present cloudless horizon\emdash that each moment, with sleepless vigilance, the stealthy foe is creeping nearer and nearer?\emdash that the smooth current is gliding slowly but surely onward and still onward towards the brink of the waterfall, where all at once the irrevocable leap will and must be taken?\par \par Reader, perchance you can even now tell the tale! You may at present be reading it, or you may have recently done so, with tearful eyes and a breaking heart. You may be marking the vacant seat at your table, missing the accents of some well-known voice, or the sound of some well-remembered footfall; a beaming eye in your daily walk may be gone, and gone forth forever of time! What other antidote for hearts smitten down by these hurricane-blasts which leave earth a blackened wilderness\emdash but a look beyond, to that Better Land, where this enemy's power is neither felt nor feared?\par \par In that glorious resurrection-morning, the scepter which death has wielded for six thousand years will be wrested from his grasp, and that chorus will begin for which centuries of suffering hearts have been willfully longing, "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" (1 Cor. 15:55.) Sounding trumpets commenced the song of the Lord in the temple of old, (2 Chron. 29:27.) It was a type of a mightier festival in the temple of glory. "The trumpet of God" is to sound first. Slumbering millions will start at the summons, "Awake and sing, you that dwell in dust!" (Isa. 26:19.)\par \par Believer! seek to contemplate death from the heavenward side, as a foe doomed and conquered. If you are now in Jesus, victory over death is yours by anticipation. You cannot sing the song of victory completed; but you can be weaving the garlands of triumph, and tuning your harp for the prophetic strain! But although death is between us and the heavenly paradise, the monster's sting has been plucked away, and cast into the flames of the Savior's sacrifice. Safe in Christ!\emdash then, indeed, is death disarmed of its real terrors. It becomes a stupendous triumphal arch, through which God's redeemed legions pass into glory. A dark Valley, but bridged by the rainbow of promise, with its radiant hues of love, and joy, and peace! Lean on the promises now; they alone will support you in the hour of death, and prove to you, like Elijah's horses and chariots of fire. Living now near to Jesus, you will have nothing to do when the last solemn hour does arrive, but to step into these chariots, and be upborne by angels to your Father's house!\par \par O blissful consummation! once across that threshold, and every remembrance of sadness which death generates here, and which often makes life one valley of Baca\emdash one "valley of weeping"\emdash will be obliterated, and that forever! No sun going down "while it is yet day;" no glory of manhood suddenly eclipsed; no early blossoms nipped in the bud; no venerable trees, under whose shadow we have long reposed, succumbing to the axe of the Destroyer. Viewing death from the earthly side, it seems the mournful "exodus of life"\emdash the fatal extinguisher, the dread annihilator of fondest hopes and purest happiness. Taking the heavenward view, it is what Matthew Henry significantly calls "the parenthesis of being." It is the bridge from the finite to the infinite; the birthday of immortality; the momentary rasping of the shallows in entering the quiet haven; the day which, while it terminates the joys of the worldling, only truly begins those of the believer!\par \par Suffering saints of God! you who may have been "tossed about with a great fight of afflictions," long out on the stormy sea, neither sun nor stars appearing, and, like the seamen in Adria of old, "wistfully looking for the day"\emdash be comforted. Each day is bringing you nearer and nearer these peaceful shores. You may even now be discovering indications that you cannot be far from the desired port!\par \par "Afflicted, tempest-tossed, and not comforted," "lift up your heads with joy, for your redemption draws near!" (Luke 21:28.) Yet a little while and He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry. Every new sorrow that visits you; every new season which passes over you; every friend taken from you; these are so many silent messengers from the shores of glory, whispering, "Nearer eternity!" Time itself seems not to be without significant monitors\emdash signals scattered on its ocean that "the day is at hand!" Prophecy is fast fulfilling. There are those who, from the shrouds and rigging, can observe, in the hazy distance, the dim outline of a more glorious hemisphere than that of earth\emdash "the new world"\emdash even "the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwells righteousness!" (2 Pet. 3:13.)\par \par Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be NO MORE DEATH or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever." Rev. 21:1, 3, 4\par \par "Then, looking up through sorrow's night,\par We trace the spirit's homeward flight;\par The Prince of Life has marked that road,\par Through the Dark Valley, home to God.\par \par "Where once the Master lowly lay,\par Let the tired servant rest today;\par And in the Father's house above,\par Forever share the Master's love."\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } to praise, and You to know,\par Constitute my bliss below;\par You to see, and You to love,\par Constitute my bliss above."\emdash Toplady\par \par "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, in your likeness." -Psalm 17:15.\par \par What a glorious awaking, after earth's unquiet dream! With God! Like God! Happiness has been well defined to be "the harmonizing of the finite will with the Infinite." On earth that harmonizing is never perfect. There are disturbing forces in the moral atmosphere tempting the soul ever and anon, like some wandering planet, to break loose from the sphere of the Divine favor, and pursue a devious and erratic orbit. Strange, indeed, that, despite of lessons constantly enforced, it should cling so fondly to the delusion that there are elements of heart-satisfying happiness independent of God. Vain thought! Even when the objects on which the affections are lavished seem the purest and noblest, there is ever a consciousness of unfulfilled longings, yearnings after something better, which earth cannot give. In this chase after happiness a point may be reached, but not the point. In grasping the imaginary good, it is but a shadow. It appeared, in approaching, fair and captivating. It proved, in reality, a piece of fairy frost-work; on touching it, it fell apart.\par \par But in Heaven the harmonizing will be complete. Man's will and love will there be entirely subordinate to the will and love of God. The lineaments of the Divine image, erased and effaced at the Fall, will be there again imprinted. There will be no competing affection to alienate from the great Source of happiness\emdash no vacuum requiring anything else to fill it. The rills will be unneeded in the presence of the great Fountain-Head\emdash Him who is essential love, essential goodness, essential glory.\par \par "Lord," says Augustine, "You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it reposes in You!" Those immortal powers and energies and affections made for God, will then repose forever in God. There will be nothing more to be desired or longed for; and the rejoicing soul, gazing around on the floods of the excellent glory, will be able to say, "I am satisfied!"\par \par "Once I dreamed," says Payson, "of being transported to heaven; and being surprised to find myself so calm and tranquil in the midst of my happiness, I inquired the cause. The reply was, When you were on earth, you resembled a bottle but partly filled with water, which was agitated by the least motion\emdash now you are like the same bottle filled to the brim, which cannot be disturbed." Yes! then every soul will become a temple, and its distinguishing glory will be that of Solomon's on the day of consecration\emdash "the house was filled with the glory of the Lord!" (1 Kings 8:11.) Other and minor sources of happiness there may be. There may be the waving of incense, sounds of sweet melody, the high praises of God chanted by a mighty multitude which no man can number, and the lofty companionship of cherubim and seraphim; but the believer's pre-eminent dignity and blessedness will consist in his own soul becoming a consecrated shrine for the mystic Shekinah\emdash "God dwelling in him, and he in God."\par \par Reader! whatever be the Divine dealings and discipline in fitting you for such a Heaven, and such a likeness, submit to them. To employ a well-known but beautiful illustration\emdash The refining of silver is not complete, until the refiner beholds his own image reflected brightly in the fused metal. And if He who calls Himself "a Refiner of silver" keeps you long in the crucible\emdash subjecting you for long to the furnace\emdash it is only that every grain and speck of alloy may be purged away, and that in Heaven you may awake rejoicing, and "satisfied" in "His likeness."\par \par What a glorious, what a strange transformation! Who would recognize the spirit that is now chafed and buffeted with temptation and sin, corruption and iniquity, then made resplendent with the image of a holy God? As the shapeless, unseemly root of the flower or plant struggling amid rubbish and stones and cheerless darkness, after fastening its fibers in the soil, sends up a graceful stalk, efflorescing in loveliness and beauty, its leaves waving in the sunlight, and filling the summer air with their fragrance\emdash so will it be with the soul. It is here sown in corruption. It fastens its roots in a world dark and cheerless, by reason of sin. Its immortal fibers are nursed and disciplined amid trials and sorrows, difficulties and perplexities. It is soiled and degraded with the corruptible elements through which it has to fight its upward way. But there is a glorious summer-time at hand, when the root thus nurtured shall burst its mortal chains, and its leaves and blossoms shall not only be bathed in the hues of heaven, but their every tint will be resplendent with a glory reflected from the Great Source of all light and joy.\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } ffk Y 08 Waking Realities{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 WAKING REALITIES.\par \par "While I see Your love to me,\par Every object teems with joy;\par Here, oh may I walk with Thee,\par Then into Your presence die!\par \par "You wkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 FACE TO FACE.\par \par "Brief life is here our portion,\par Brief sorrow, short-lived care:\par The life that knows no ending,\par The tearless life, is there.\par There, glory yet unheard of\par Shall shed abroad its ray,\par Resolving all enigmas\emdash\par An endless Sabbath-day."\emdash Bernard\par \par "Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face." \emdash 1 Cor. 13:12.\par \par What an extension in the domain of knowledge on that blessed morning when "the day shall break," and earth's twilight shadows shall "flee away forever." The mysteries in Providence, the "deep things" in Scripture, the apparent discrepancies in God's moral government, all unfolded, vindicated, explained. "In your light," O God, we shall "see light," (Ps. 36:9.)\par \par How this new illumination will be effected we cannot say. We can only venture a few dim conjectures on a great problem which the future itself alone can solve.\par \par Much of our curtailed and partial knowledge here, is owing to the limited range of our present faculties. It is quite possible to conceive in a future world a vast and indefinite extension and amplification of our present mental and bodily powers; such an amplification as the man born blind experiences when his eyes are opened for the first time, on a world of whole glories he has only been previously cognizant by hearing about them. We can quite well imagine some faculty which either we do not now possess, or which hitherto, like the sight of the blind man we have supposed, has been lying sealed and dormant, all at once imparted\emdash "eyes of our understanding" opened, which are now closed\emdash new powers, shall we say, of thought and reasoning, taking in knowledge by intuition, which now requires years of laborious thought.\par \par Even in the case of the lower animals, we see powers and instincts which we do not possess, but which, if we did possess them, would add incalculably to our capacities. Instance, as familiar examples, the flight of the migratory birds, or that of the bee winging its way to a vast distance from its hive; yet, notwithstanding its tortuous aerial journey, finding, with unerring precision, its way back to the hidden nook where it started.\par \par The present limited range alike of our physical and moral powers of observation may have been, as an able writer surmises, the reason why Paul, when he was caught up into the third heavens, tells us he saw things which it is not "possible for a man to utter." Why not possible? Simply because he was not gifted with earthly powers or faculties or language capable of giving expression to what he saw. The phenomena of heavenly glory (if I might so call them) were alike, in kind and degree, so diverse from all he had been conversant with here, that he would have needed another dialect and vocabulary to unfold his meaning.\par \par "But THEN shall I know!" All enigma and difficulty will then vanish\emdash all will be made plain to ennobled, refined, and purified powers. Here on earth, a passing breath from a carnal world dims my glass, and obscures my spiritual vision. There in heaven, there will be no taint of sin to mar or blight my lofty contemplations. Here, amid the twilight shadows of an imperfect state there is much to cause doubt, and, alas! disagreement among God's children. There, all shall see "eye to eye;" they will only wonder that trifles should have been allowed so sadly to divide and estrange. Here, we are in the gloomy crypt, walking amid the humiliating wrecks of sin and death, reading the mysterious records of mortality. There, it will be in the "cathedral aisles" of light and love, harmony and peace\emdash the noon-day splendor of eternity. Glorious prospect! all made bright before that Sapphire Throne.\par \par That mysterious PROVIDENCE, that desolating bereavement which, like a sweeping avalanche, tore up by the roots the fibers of affection, then I shall know, and see, and acknowledge it to have been all for good. Then I shall understand, (what my aching heart cannot now,) that the child I wept over\emdash the parent I laid prematurely in the grave\emdash the friend, early severed from my side\emdash were all thereby taken from much evil to come, and invested with an earlier bliss. I shall wonder how I could ever have sorrowed on their behalf.\par \par Meanwhile let me bow submissive to my Righteous Father's will, however dark and startling sometimes it may be. In infancy, the child takes much on trust; in after life, he gets his difficulties explained. Let this be my position regarding the "deep things" of providence and grace. Wait patiently the explanation of my Father in heaven. I shall see in the completed plan that all events had their end and mission\emdash the Lord bringing glory to Himself from all. At present I behold only one or a few links, while He has the whole chain in His hands. Then, in retracing that long line of unbroken kindness, I shall feel satisfied that not only all was for the best, but really the best. The whole bypast wilderness, as seen from the hills of glory, will appear carpeted with love. Like a traveler after a dark night, I shall look back along the region I have traversed; and noting the perils which by His gracious guidance I had escaped, wonder at the way by which God has led me.\par \par Above all, I shall grow in the knowledge of HIMSELF; and have amazing views\emdash such as I have never had here\emdash of His glory as the great end of life and being. Our present knowledge of God, even revealed knowledge, is but like the prattling of infancy, a mere attempt at a spoken language, most of which is still unintelligible. But then I shall be "filled with all the fullness of God." Not by any means that my knowledge of Him can be perfect. There will always be depths in that ocean-fullness, beyond the fathoming of any finite mind. No, further, the more I know, the more I shall feel that I have to know. When I know most, my befitting exclamation will be, "Oh the depth!" "It PASSES knowledge!" (Eph. 3:19.)\par \par "This is eternal life\emdash to know You." God, by His varied discipline, is meanwhile training me in this knowledge. And, as a sainted writer has well said, "we must wait until we get entirely home to have lesson-books put by forever. But what ever are the gradations in our books, or in whatever shape the lesson comes to us, this is the one grand blessed object aimed at by our wondrous Teacher in all, Acquaint yourself now with HIM, and be at peace." (Miss Plumptre.)\par \par "No disappointments shroud\par The angel-bowers of joy;\par Our knowledge has no cloud,\par Our pleasures no alloy.\par \par "The fearful word, to part,\par Is never breathed above;\par Heaven has no broken heart\par Throughout her realms of love."\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } ? IE09 Face to Face{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\vie And how fair that heavenly legion,\par Where thus men and angels blend!\par Glorious will that city be,\par Full of deep tranquility,\par Light, and peace, from end to end!\par All the happy dwellers there\par Shine in robes of purity,\par Bound in firmest unity.\par Labor finds them not, nor care,\par Ignorance can never perplex,\par Nothing tempt them, nothing vex;\par Joy and health their fadeless blessing,\par Always all things good possessing."\par \emdash Thomas A Kempis, 1380.\par \par "And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light."\emdash Rev. 21:23.\par \par Heaven is here compared to a city. But it is no created orbs, no material luminaries, which light up its glorious edifices. These are superseded. There is no longer need of the intervention of means as on earth. All the knowledge and light and glory of the Church triumphant emanate directly from the Divine Source of all excellence. The immediate presence of the Creator and the Lamb will render unnecessary every other medium of communication. As a vessel requires props before being launched to sea\emdash or a house in building requires scaffolding before it can be completed\emdash so the Church, in its earthly condition, requires the props and scaffolding of ordinances and means of grace. But when the erection is finished\emdash the last stone placed on the consummated structure\emdash then the scaffolding is removed\emdash it is needed no more. "There shall be no more prayer there," says Baxter, "because no more necessity; but the full enjoyment of the thing prayed for. God's face shall be the Scripture where we shall read the truth."\par \par We have servants in the lower banqueting-house\emdash angels are ministering spirits sent forth "to minister to the heirs of salvation." The Church has ordained office-bearers to carry the vessels of the sanctuary. In Heaven, the Master "girds Himself and serves," (Luke 17:8.) Here it is mediately through the creature our spiritual needs are supplied\emdash there all will be supplied directly from God and the Lamb. It is "THE LAMB who leads to the living fountains of water." It is "God" who "wipes away all tears from the eyes!" (Rev. 7:17.) Here on earth, the use of means is indispensable. They are adapted for our state of imperfection. The infant or sick man cannot bear the full blaze of the sun\emdash they must have the curtain drawn, or the brightness tempered and subdued; it is only with increasing age or returning health that either are able to look on the light. So in the infancy and weakness of our probation-state we could not bear to gaze on the unveiled majesty of God's glory\emdash we could not endure its intolerable brightness; it would blind and consume us. The figurative "sun" and "moon" of ordinances are, therefore, graciously appointed for the feebleness of our earthly condition. But when invested with the nobler powers of our heavenly manhood, we shall be able to dispense with these\emdash we shall be able to draw aside the veiling curtain, which is needed now to subdue and modify, and to gaze with eagle-eye on the brightness of Jehovah's presence.\par \par To borrow an apt illustration: None of the lower animals can hold, in the noblest sense of the word, fellowship with man, as they are at present constituted; but let one of them have suddenly imparted to it the gift of reason, then it becomes immediately fitted to do so. So it is with regard to our present and future relation to God. We are unable, with our present limited powers, to hold, in the highest sense, intimate fellowship with Him\emdash we have the feeblest conceptions of His glory, the most inadequate apprehension of His goodness, and power, and excellency, and majesty. But when we come in a glorified state to have higher and nobler spiritual endowments conferred on us, we shall be able to see, as we cannot do now, His glorious perfections, and to enjoy, as we cannot do now, His presence and favor, His fellowship and love.\par \par The city will then have no "need" of the sun! It is needed now, while on earth\emdash the softer and more subdued light is required now; but earth's darkness will then be past, and the true Light will shine. We shall be able (without being, like Moses, hidden in the cleft of any sheltering rock) to "see God and live!" (Exod. 33:20.)\par \par And what a fellowship will this be!\emdash The Being of all beings, the Light of all lights! David felt it to be subject-matter of gratitude and joy\emdash "I am companion to those who fear you." He had a hallowed joy in the fellowship of kindred spirits on earth. What will it be to be the companion of God Himself?\emdash to be linked with all that is essentially great, and glorious, and good, in the universe\emdash not only to be brother to the angelic hosts, but, in a higher sense than even the Father of the faithful knew it, "to be called" (and to BE) "the friend of God!"\par \par If, even on earth, I have known something of Him as my "Light" and my "Salvation"\emdash if I have seen somewhat of His glory shining through the battered chinks of my ruined soul\emdash what will it be to bask in the floods of infinite light and love before the Throne? "What can be desired," says one now in the midst of the glorious realities on which he often dwelt, "beyond the bliss imparted by the consciousness of loving and being loved by Him, in whose smile of love the highest archangels find the very heaven of heaven to consist?"\par \par I shall be independent of all that contributes to light up my earthly pathway. Friends I may have then among the angels\emdash hallowed reunions of earthly affection may and will take place in that world of glory; but though I expect to prize and cherish them, I shall have no "NEED" of them. They will be among the "lesser glories," having no glory (comparatively) by reason of "the glory that excels." The sunlight and the moonlight will pale into nothingness in the presence of mightier beams!\par \par But while I shall be lost in amazement at the exceeding greatness and excellency of this great Being, who is enthroned "in light, inaccessible, and full of glory"\emdash while all the eloquence of earth that has tried to portray the majesty of His glory will fall immeasurably short\emdash it will, at the same time, be a softened glory. Never, in these sublime pictures of Heaven which we have in the Book of Revelation, is the Lord God Almighty spoken of but in conjunction with "the Lamb." John "saw no temple; the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were the temple," (Rev. 21:22.) Now he sees no light. The luster of earthly sun, and moon, and stars, have faded, and are quenched forever, but "the Lord God Almighty AND THE LAMB are the light thereof." He hears the redeemed multitude sing a lofty anthem, but it is this\emdash "Salvation to our God that sits upon the throne, AND UNTO THE LAMB," (Rev. 7:10) What is the design of this often-recurring imagery and symbol but to keep ever before the Church, even in its triumphant state, the intervention of a Mediator, by whom alone it is that we can see God and live? "The Lamb is the light thereof!" Calvary's cross and Calvary's Savior will still be the theme and mystery of eternity!\par \par And if light be the emblem of purity, how I ought, in the prospect of such a Heaven and such a Presence, to make it my great ambition to be "perfecting" that "holiness, without which no man can see the Lord!" (Heb. 12:14.) Holiness becomes that city! Its gates are never shut except against sin. Let me seek, as its chartered citizen, that every vestige of the accursed thing be now put away. What a happy world, where temptation shall no longer be felt or feared!\emdash where I shall never more, by reason of sin, be mourning an absent Lord\emdash never more, in the midst of my own erring estrangements, be uttering the plaintive soliloquy of the patriarch, "Oh that I knew where I might find HIM!" but ever reposing in the joyous consciousness, "I am still with You!"\par \par "With HIM all gathered! to that blessed home,\par Through all its windings, still the pathway tends;\par While ever and anon bright glimpses come\par Of that fair city where the journey ends.\par Where all of bliss is centered in one word,\par 'So shall we be forever with the Lord.'"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } }}7 e10 Unneeded Luminaries{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 UNNEEDED LUMINARIES.\par \par "Oh, how beautiful that region,\par of souls! Your face to see,\par In Your pleasant Salem, yonder,\par Where no tear nor sigh may be;\par And God's presence on the sight\par Shines in pure unshadowed light."\par \par "We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." \emdash 1 John 3:2.\par \par This beautiful verse of John comprises the two grand elements of heavenly glory: To "SEE God"\emdash to be "LIKE God." It describes the matured manhood of the Christian.\par \par We are now in a state of infancy and childhood. As a child on earth is incapable of comprehending much that is made plain in after years, so, with regard to divine knowledge, "we know in part, and we prophesy in part," (1 Cor. 13:9.) But in the full development of our spiritual being we shall "see Him face to face." The earthly prayer will, for the first time, in all its amplitude, be fulfilled\emdash "I beseech you, show me your glory," (Exod. 33:18.)\par \par See Him! What an advance does this announcement indicate in the moral capacities and privileges of the glorified, beyond what they enjoyed on earth! We cannot bear to look even on the natural sun here; we are dazzled and blinded with his intolerable brightness. But there, "the Lord our God" is to be our "everlasting light," (Isa. 60:20.) The spiritual vision will be enlarged and adapted for the augmented glories of this higher manifestation.\par \par See Him! What an honor! The Jewish High Priest was highly favored in being permitted, once a year, to gaze on the majestic symbol of the Divine presence\emdash the Temple Shekinah Glory. What will it be to enjoy the eternal and uninterrupted contemplation of the great God Himself\emdash that, too, undimmed by any mystic or shadowy rites; but "with open face," (lit. face unveiled,) "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord," (2 Cor. 3:18.) And it is to "see Him as He is." Not canopied in clouds and wreathed in rainbow-form, dreadful, inapproachable\emdash but God in our nature, "Immanuel, God with us. It is plain that it is Jesus of whom the Apostle of love speaks in our motto-verse. Jesus as He was, and is, and ever shall be\emdash the Elder Brother\emdash the kinsman Redeemer\emdash "the same yesterday, and today, and forever," (Heb. 13:8.)\par \par Often are we conscious of the thought presenting itself, "Would that I had been among the number of those who of old were privileged to hear that loving voice, and gaze on that countenance, 'fairer than the children of men!' Would that I had sat on the Hill of Beatitudes, and listened to those words of matchless wisdom; or stood by the sea-shore of Gennesaret, or in the graveyard of Bethany, or mingled in the jubilant crowd on Olivet!" This honor is ours in heaven. We shall "see the King in His beauty." "Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your King comes." "They shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads," (Rev. 22:4.) It will be said of His redeemed people in glory, as the queen of Sheba said of His earthly type, "Happy are your men, happy are these your servants, which stand continually before you!" (1 Kings 10:8.)\par \par "LIKE Him!" This is spoken of here as the second element in Heavenly bliss.\par \par Even on earth the contemplation of Christ by faith is represented as bringing about a resemblance to Himself. "We are changed into the same image from glory to glory." How much more, when, as divine artists, gazing on His unveiled luster, we shall be enabled to copy the Divine Original, feature by feature! "We shall be like Him, FOR we shall SEE Him." We cannot, even in the present world, be much in the company of an individual without insensibly contracting a resemblance to him\emdash catching up his tones, his manners, his habits of taste and thought. So will it be in Heaven with Jesus. We shall become more and more "Savior-like." Oh, surely if it be an exalted honor to see Him, with what glory will it invest the ransomed thus, in any feeble measure, to resemble Him! If it be the Christian's secret aspiration on earth to be like Abraham, or Moses, or David, or John, or Paul, what will it be to be "like HIM," of whom these are but the faintest shadow?\par \par But, more than this\emdash not only is likeness to Jesus an honor; it is a necessary requirement or qualification to render the believer fit for the enjoyment of Heaven. I need, in some degree at least, conformity to Him in character, in order to be able to appreciate His home of purity and love. The most beautiful landscape may be placed before the blind man, but, deprived of the organ of vision, by which alone its beauties can be apprehended, he can see no loveliness in it. So Heaven in its holiness would be one vacant and dreary blank, if I have no moral eye with which to behold it. But that moral vision will be imparted. The perfectly-renewed heart, a copy of its Lord's, will then be the true "organ of sight." There will be no sin to mar the contemplation of the Divine Original\emdash nothing to disturb or divert the spiritual eye. The heart's affections will repose with full complacency on Him, the great center of attraction. There will be perfect unison with His will, and entire, unreserved consecration to His glory; all the ennobled, renovated, sanctified powers of the glorified nature will be willingly embarked in His service. The feet will run for Him; the heart will be an altar consecrated to His worship; memory will be a labyrinth of remembered mercies; the tongue will be a glorified instrument to resound His praise; the whole regenerated being a storehouse of collected materials to proclaim and testify of His greatness and majesty\emdash His grace, and truth, and love.\par \par Be this, then, the view of Heaven I seek to have constantly before me\emdash that I am to be "like my Lord." What a solemn and searching test is thus afforded with which to try my anticipations of future bliss! Amid the most intense worldliness, there may be ethereal speculations about the glory of the saints' everlasting dwelling-place. But do I long after its mansions because their bliss consists in having a heart assimilated in holiness to that of Christ? Like the Elder Brother, and in Him to the whole brotherhood in glory\emdash saints, angels, God!\par \par Oh, if the consciousness of following, as His ransomed Israel, the pillar of His presence in the wilderness be delightful, what will it be to follow Him in the Promised Land? If the Eschol pledges be grateful, what will it be to pluck for ourselves in the heavenly vineyard, under the shadow of the living Vine Himself? 'Lord Jesus! prepare me for meeting You, seeing You, enjoying You.'\par \par Were I going, in a few years, to reside in a distant land, how I would strive now to master its language\emdash to know its history\emdash to put myself in a state of training for its habits and occupations. Heaven is that country; and this is the message sent by letter from its shores to every stranger and pilgrim on the earth, "And every one who has THIS HOPE in him purifies himself, even as Christ is pure," (1 John 3:3.) The priests in the earthly temple had to wash and purify themselves before they could engage in priestly service. So, if I am to be a "priest unto God" in the heavenly Jerusalem, I must sanctify myself for this everlasting feast.\par \par It is a quaint but a true saying, "The man who does not find heaven in his soul here, will not find his soul in heaven hereafter." Unlike Jesus now, I cannot expect to be like Him forever. The fine chiselings of the perfected model, indeed, will be added in glory; but the seed of the likeness\emdash the bold outlines of the moral sculpture\emdash must be begun on earth. Meanwhile, let the words sound in my ears, like the preparation-bell for the great Sabbath-services of the Church in heaven\emdash let them follow me like a celestial monitor wherever I am, and howsoever engaged, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," (Phil. 2:5.)\par \par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } PWPGu)13 The Mutual Joy (part 1){\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\font% qi12 Locality and Character{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0ځa em11 Vision and Fruition{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 VISION AND FRUITION.\par \par "So the wish grows deeper, fonder,\par Friend Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 LOCALITY AND CHARACTER.\par \par "The whole creation groans,\par And waits to hear that voice,\par That shall restore her loveliness,\par And make her wastes rejoice.\par Come, Lord, and wipe away\par The curse, the sin, the stain,\par And make this blighted world of ours\par Your own fair world again!"\par \par "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness."\emdash 2 Peter 3:13.\par \par Little has been said in Scripture fitted to gratify an idle curiosity regarding the circumstantials of future bliss. The extreme and studied reserve, indeed, of the sacred writers on this subject forms one of the striking indirect evidences that they were neither impostors nor enthusiasts\emdash neither pleasers of men, nor compilers of cunningly-devised fables. Had they been so, they would doubtless have appealed more than they have done to the imaginations and passions of their readers, expatiating on the scenery and splendors of the world to come.\par \par While, however, the statements are brief and fragmentary regarding the locality and characteristics of Heaven, it becomes us, with a modest precaution, to be "wise up to what is written." The verse of the apostle Peter offers us two themes for meditation on a future state of bliss\emdash two Grapes to be gleaned from the Eschol clusters.\par \par 1st, We are to look for "new heavens and a new earth."\par The present globe on which we dwell is to undergo a purifying process by fire. When the day of the Lord comes "as a thief in the night," "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up," (2 Peter 3:10.) Although, however, a conflagration be here spoken of, we have strong reason to conjecture that this planet, over which "the morning stars sang together," and which the Almighty Creator Himself pronounced to be "very good," is not to be annihilated\emdash not to be expunged from the "records of creation"\emdash but rather only remolded and reconstructed into a "new earth," nobler and more beautiful than when the Sons of God shouted over it their lofty anthems. Again, (although we have no positive authority in assigning a special locality for the future home of the glorified,) we can affirm, with strong grounds of certainty, that that home\emdash be it where it may\emdash must consist of a material habitation of some kind, suited to material bodies. Whatever change may take place hereafter on our physical frames\emdash however refined and even spiritual in one sense they may be\emdash we know that a glorified body cannot, in the nature of things, be an ethereal, angelic, spiritual essence; floating, in dreamy, shadowy form, through the regions of space. It must assume a substantial, visible, tangible shape. It is to be "fashioned" like unto the glorious resurrection-body of Jesus, (Phil. 3:21.)\par \par Much of our present corporeal organism, as we may afterwards more particularly note, may, and most probably will, be retained and restored; only their functions vastly augmented, and the sphere of activity vastly enlarged. If, then, for these glorified bodies some local material habitation must necessarily be provided, another step leads to the probable (the natural) inference, that their old abode, purified and renovated, would form the most befitting locality for their eternal residence.\par \par We have seen, in a previous Meditation, that the Great Being, at whose feet they are to cast their crowns, is most frequently spoken of and adored by them under His suffering title, "The Lamb." If He delights to remember earth as the scene of His humiliation\emdash if He delighted to dwell in its "habitable parts" in eras long antecedent to the Incarnation, and before the millions He was to save were called into existence\emdash how much more will He delight to traverse it, when\emdash "His blood, His pain, His toils" all past\emdash it becomes the monument and trophy of His unspeakable grace and love! Is it not reasonable to infer that the theater on which His redemption-work was achieved, so far from being erased from the universe, will rather be retained\emdash in restored and renovated beauty\emdash a lustrous point on which principalities and powers will delight to fix their wondering gaze, and get from its memories fresh matter and motive for praise? Will not the song listened to by Isaiah in the old Jerusalem temple\emdash when he heard "one cry to another"\emdash rise to its full cadence, in the ingathered Church of the Redeemed, when, on the platform of "the new earth," and under the dome of "the new heavens," the ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands will be heard rolling in the threefold ascription\emdash "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts! The whole EARTH is full of His glory?" (Isa. 6:3.)\par \par If we are forbidden to hazard stronger assertion, we may, at all events, speak of all this as substantial conjecture. Earth (our own present sin-stricken, woe-worn earth) may only have to put off these her ashen robes of guilt and woe, to become a heavenly and eternal home for her ransomed children\emdash beautiful amid "a sisterhood of worlds." Scripture significantly speaks, not of the renewing or remodeling of all things, but of "the restitution of all things," (Acts 3:21.) It is the building of the old fabric which the earthquake had shattered\emdash the disentangling of stone by stone from the matting weeds and ivy, and chiseling them afresh for the heavenly Temple. All that sin has left uncorrupted may remain as it is. We may have the same glorious sky for a canopy\emdash the same everlasting mountains to gaze upon\emdash the same grateful vicissitude of seasons, the same winds to chant\emdash the same waves to chime, "Glory to God in the highest!"\par \par The eye may be charmed, as now, with harmonious coloring\emdash the ear delighted, as now, with music and song. The senses may be as susceptible (or more susceptible) than they now are of the sublime and beautiful in nature\emdash art may vindicate, under nobler auspices, her claim to be the handmaid of all that is pure and lovely and of good report\emdash the harpers, harping on a glassy sea, undimmed and unfretted by a ripple of sin or sorrow\emdash the very words which are now at times attuned to our sinful lips in a sinful world, may be set to the higher music and melodies of a world of purity and love\emdash "O Lord, how manifold are your works! in wisdom have you made them all! THE EARTH is full of your riches!" (Ps. 104:24.)\par \par The 2nd statement in the words of Peter, is the special characteristic of these "new heavens and new earth, wherein dwells righteousness."\par \par This brings us again to the great truth, that it is the moral aspect and character of heaven, and not its locality, which most concerns us. If the Bible descriptions and pictures of a future state teach us anything, it is this\emdash not to indulge in fanciful theories about the accessories of heavenly bliss, but to keep our minds focused on this great truth\emdash that holiness characterizes that kingdom! It matters comparatively little where we shall be, but it matters much, and it concerns us much, to know what we shall be. We may not be able categorically to pronounce whether Heaven is on some distant, and as yet untraversed nook in creation; or whether it may be this very earth, consecrated by so many mingled memories of sin, suffering, and glory. But this we do know, that Righteousness will be the great law of that blissful empire. We repeat the great truth dwelt upon in the previous chapter\emdash "It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be LIKE Him."\par \par It is SIN which forms the foul curse and blot on the "present evil world." In itself, our earth is all one could wish as a beauteous and befitting habitation for glorified natures. Take sin away, which has blighted and blasted whatever is fair within it, and you transmute it at once into a "Paradise restored." Yes! imagine this world\emdash this very world\emdash purged of its evils\emdash its selfishness\emdash its profligacy\emdash its covetousness\emdash its jealousies\emdash its backbitings\emdash each heart a transparent fountain of pure and holy thought\emdash each household a little Bethel\emdash every life within it an incense-breathing altar\emdash each nation linked with its fellow in everlasting brotherhood\emdash the curse of Babel removed, and the one universal tongue the language of love!\par \par Then, following the expulsion of sin, picture the expulsion of SUFFERING. The cries of infancy\emdash the pains of sickness\emdash the pangs of disease\emdash the ashen cheek (the sad premonitory symptom of coming dissolution)\emdash the bitter bereavement\emdash the tolling of the funeral bell\emdash the crowded grave-yard\emdash the weeds of mourning, and deeper yawning chasms of bitterness in the soul which no human plummet can gauge\emdash imagine all these unknown\emdash these "former things passed away."\par \par Moreover, add to this negative, the POSITIVE view of a world of bliss\emdash the presence of God\emdash the personal love of an ever-present Savior\emdash fellowship with angels\emdash communion with all that is holy and happy! Oh, I need not go and make the sun my chariot, and sweep the azure skies\emdash I need not traverse the nightly plains, and make every star a resting-place in my search for a happy heaven\emdash I have it wherever God and righteousness is! He might erect for me in infinite space some gigantic palace, glittering with coruscations of unearthly splendor\emdash its halls gleaming with the ransacked treasures of the universe\emdash resplendent with beauty, resonant with song. But if sin were there\emdash Heaven it could not be! "Blessed are the pure in heart; they alone can see"\emdash they alone can enjoy "God!" (Matt. 5:8.)\par \par Is my mind and character now, in any feeble measure, fitted for this sinless abode? No unrenewed, unregenerate man could be happy there. Take a peasant from the plough, and set him on a throne; how ill at ease would he feel at the strange transition!\emdash how ill qualified to cope with the duties and cares and responsibilities of empire! Take a deaf man to listen to melodious music\emdash or a blind man to gaze on the glories of a landscape, both would fail to imbibe one pleasurable emotion, seeing they are destitute of the requisite inlets of enjoyment. The objects of pleasure are, in both cases, locked to their senses.\par \par So likewise in Heaven. Without holiness, I could have no relish for communion with God. I must have a moral vision to render me capable of appreciating the moral loveliness of its scenery\emdash I must have spiritual tastes and likings to render its holy society congenial. As little could an inhabitant of our earth, with his present bodily organization, be able to sustain life on a planet nearer the sun, (such as Mercury,) as the sinner, with his spiritual organization unchanged, be able to bear the blaze of that heaven of unsullied purity!\par \par O happy time! when alike the world without and the world within will be purified\emdash hallowed\emdash "made fit for the Master's use." Every sinful passion quelled\emdash every usurper overthrown\emdash when from this creation, now "groaning and travailing in pain," shall arise a perpetual hymn of praise and love\emdash when sin, which like a vast avalanche has been crushing it down, shall have melted away forever! And more than this, when my own heart\emdash regenerated, glorified\emdash will become a consecrated altar, on which the sacrifices of righteousness will be offered continually\emdash self, sin, corruption, no longer burning their defiled incense and strange fire, but all shall "grow" into a "holy temple in the Lord."\par \par Lord! I would seek to have this Heaven begun! Let me not only see the Eschol clusters\emdash let me taste them. Give me grace to become more and more holy. Let the power of evil wax weaker and weaker, and the power of holiness wax stronger and stronger. It has been beautifully said, "The upper streets of glory are on earth." Let it be so with me. Let my heart become now a miniature heaven. Let me know, in my blissful experience, the truth of the Savior's words, "The kingdom of God is WITHIN you."\par \par "Many a joyful sight was given,\par Many a lovely vision here,\par Hill, and valley, and starry heaven,\par Friendship's smile, affection's tear;\par These were shadows, sent in love,\par Of realities above!\par \par "Here were sweet and varied tones,\par Bird, and breeze, and fountain's fall;\par Yet Creation's travail-groans\par Ever sadly sighed through all.\par There no discord jars the air,\par Harmony is perfect there!\par \par "Here devotion's healing balm\par Oft came to soothe my breast,\par Hours of deep and holy calm,\par Pledges of eternal rest.\par But the glory was unknown,\par Which shall there be all my own!"\par \par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } tbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE MUTUAL JOY.\par \par "Lo! He beckons from on high!\par Fearless to His presence fly.\par Yours the merit of His blood,\par Yours the righteousness of God!\par Angels, joyful to attend,\par Hovering round your pillow bend;\par Wait to catch the signal given,\par And escort you quickly to heaven."\par \par "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory."\emdash John17:24.\par \par An emigrant is about to sail for a distant land. As the vessel weighs anchor, and his family are gathered on the shore to bid a sorrowful farewell, his last words remind them that it is but a temporary separation\emdash that in a few brief years, by a favoring Providence, he will be back again, to take them along with him to his adopted home!\par \par Or, a father gathers his children around his death-bed, to give them his last blessing. With his eye looking upwards to the glorious world on which his spirit is about to enter, he tells them, in faltering accents, to dry their tears; for in a little while they will be reunited in that "better land" which knows no parting.\par \par Here is the utterance of a departing Savior to His orphaned children. It forms a petition in His last intercessory prayer, when about to leave the world, and return to the Father. "Oh, the full joys," says Richard Baxter, speaking of this verse in his 'Saint's Rest,' "offered to a believer in this one sentence of Christ! Every word full of life and joy!"\par \par The verse brings before us these two thoughts in connection with a state of future bliss\emdash The SAVIOR'S joy in Heaven in being with His people; and His PEOPLE'S joy in Heaven in being with their Savior.\par \par I. The Savior here speaks of HIS OWN JOY in having His saints with Him in glory.\par The language is that of a conqueror claiming a stipulated reward. God seems to say to Him, "Ask of me, and I will give it to you. Son, you are ever with me, and all that I have is yours." And what does He ask? He had Heaven at His command\emdash "thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers." But He prefers the request to be crowned as "Lord of all," in the midst of His saints\emdash that redeemed sinners, like celestial planets, might through eternity circle and constellate around Him, their central Sun. "He will rest in his love; he will rejoice over them with singing," (Zeph. 3:17.)\par \par On earth, a man likes to live and die among those he venerates. The old village patriarch desires to be laid where his fathers sleep, in his native churchyard. The Jew will travel back from the most distant region of the world, that his bones may be laid in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, under the shadow of Olivet, and within hearing of the Kedron. "Where you die," said Ruth to the one she loved best, "I shall die, and there shall I be buried," (Ruth 1:17.)\par \par So speaks also an ever-living Savior of His people. "Where I live," He says, "there you are to live also; eternity shall not separate between you and me." The well-known tomb of a great earthly architect is placed immediately under the dome of the vast temple his genius had reared. With reverence we say it, Jesus is through eternity to be enshrined in the Temple of His saints, the living stones rising tier on tier around\emdash each glowing with the inscription, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me."\par \par What joy thus to behold around Him the travail of His soul, the purchase of His agony! If we value great results generally in proportion to the labor and toil bestowed on them\emdash if the philosopher, in arriving at some brilliant achievement in science, has all the greater joy when he thinks of it as the result of months and years of patient and unwearied exertion; if the artist or sculptor has all the greater joy in contemplating his completed work, by retraversing in thought years of incessant labor, the line by line, and stroke by stroke, until he worked it up to the now breathing marble\emdash if the Great God Himself, in resting from the work of creation, when He contemplated its magnitude, had delight when He pronounced it "very good"\emdash what must be the transcendent joy with which the adorable Redeemer beholds the completion of an undertaking which involved in it so unparalleled a cost of humiliation and pain and woe! What shall be the delight with which He, the mighty Architect, contemplates the living, breathing forms of immortal life, which, by His own and His Spirit's work, were chiseled and fashioned to adorn the Heavenly Temple!\par \par Here was "the joy" we read of "that was set before Him;"\emdash the joy of seeing "a multitude which no man can number" who had "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." If the courageous mariner has joy, who, at the risk of his life, bravely dashed into the water, and rescued some struggling castaway from the weltering waves\emdash if the Patriot-Philanthropist could with joy stand in thought amid the grateful millions whose fetters he had struck off, and into whose lips he had put the music of freedom\emdash if the honored minister has joy, who, on his death-bed, can say, at the retrospect of a lifetime of self-sacrificing devotedness in his Master's cause, "Blessed be God, my work is done,"\emdash what shall we say (if we can compare the earthly with the heavenly\emdash the finite with the infinite) of that everlasting joy which shall fill the bosom of the Savior as He sees those once bound with the fetters of sin, struggling in the waves of despair, now saved with a great salvation, exulting in "the glorious liberty of the sons of God!"\par \par If He had joy\emdash as we believe He had\emdash when in the depths of a bypast eternity He said, "Lo, I come," (though in that coming He had all the appalling prospect of ignominy and shame;)\emdash if "Wisdom" had "delights with the sons of men and rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth," when the solitary treading of the wine-press had yet to be borne; if He had joy when He stretched forth His hands over His "Church in the wilderness," and said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world"\emdash what intenser and holier joy must that be, when, every woe and pang and sorrow at an end, His people shall be with Him "where He is;" earth's battle, with its "confused noise and garments rolled in blood," terminated; the everlasting triumphal procession of eternity begun\emdash immortal palm-branches strewed in the way\emdash and the streets of the new Jerusalem echoing to the cry, "Hosanna to the Son of David"\emdash "Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigns!" (Rev. 19:6.)\par \par Behold, then, Heaven as a place where the Savior Himself shall rejoice over His ransomed ones. They are "glorified together." They are glorified in Him, and He is glorified in them. "Heaven would not be enough for Jesus without His people. It seems as if their presence were essential, not to His deity, (this cannot be,) but to His mediatorial happiness," (Evans.) The joy in that happy world would seem to begin at the center, and to be deepest there, but sending out its waves to the circumference of glory.\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } they see Him face to face,\par Him who saved them by His grace."\emdash Kelly.\par \par "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory."\emdash John 17:24.\par \par In our last chapter, we considered this verse as expressive of the Savior's joy in Heaven in being with His people. We may consider it now as expressive of HIS PEOPLE'S JOY in Heaven in being with their Savior. Let us enumerate some of the causes or reasons of this joy.\par \par (1.) The very fact of HIS being joyful will give them joy.\par When a son hears of some honor done to his hoary-headed parent, or of some event or occurrence that has given him pleasure, the joy or the pride in the parent's bosom will be transfused into that of his child, and become part of his own. Or if we hear of the promotion of a brother or a friend\emdash that by dint of intellect or goodness or worth he has risen to some position of honorable eminence\emdash what a joy his success gives to us! And shall it not be so in an infinite degree with the redeemed in glory? When they behold the Brother of brothers, the Friend of friends, reaping the fruits of the "travail of His soul," and "being satisfied," His joy will become their own!\par \par (2.) The thought of His being near them and with them will impart to them joy.\par It makes us happy to have those near us we love. We never enjoy friendship so much as when that friend is by our side. We may be cheered from time to time by an absent brother's letters, his kind messages, and warm expressions of attachment; but the written epistle does not supply the blank of the living one\emdash we long to see him face to face before our joy can be complete.\par \par So likewise in Heaven with Jesus. "In Your presence," "there is fullness of joy." Then and there shall that presence be fully unveiled.\par \par If even in this twilight world the Christian can say, in the enjoyment of a present Savior, "It is good for me to be here;" how good to be there! If even now the messages of this absent Elder Brother, through His Word and Spirit, be cheering and joyful, what will be the vision and fruition of the Brother Himself! If the manna from the banqueting-table be precious, what will it be to have the vision and fruition of the Master of assemblies!\par \par (3.) The thought of His not only being with them and near them, but EVER with them, and EVER near them, will greatly intensify their joy.\par  A friend or brother comes from a distant land. His visit is cheering at the time, but it is only a passing glimpse. The joy of his home-coming is soon damped by the necessity or summons again to return. The joy of the disciples in having their Lord with them in the days of His flesh was sadly clouded by the announcement, "It is expedient for you that I go away." " Because I have said these things unto you, sorrow has filled your heart," (John 16:6.)\par \par Not so will it be with His s econd and more glorious coming. "The Master has come," will be the joyful message and cry, "and He will never more be taken from us"\emdash He will be no longer "a wayfaring man that turns aside to tarry for a night"\emdash no farewell tear will ever again be shed\emdash no Olivet in Heaven, like the earthly one, where He is to be "parted from them!" Oh, the joy comprehended in that key-note to the song of the Redeemed, "And so shall we EVER be with the Lord!"\par \par (4.) One other element of  the joy of the Redeemed in Heaven in having Jesus with them, is that His presence will through eternity be the pledge and guarantee of their SAFETY.\par The Tree of Life in the first Eden was the guarantee of Adam's safety, so long as he continued faithful to his Maker. Christ is the Tree of Life in the midst of the Heavenly paradise\emdash the immortal pledge of His people's covenant security. "Because I live you shall live also," (John 14:19.) Their happiness through eternity is secured by His  meritorious work\emdash they are there as His blood-bought trophies\emdash their presence in Heaven is an answer to the prayer we are now considering; it is the glorious Victor claiming His purchased rights, "Father, I WILL." And not until He revokes that "will"\emdash in other words, not until an unchanging Savior become changeable\emdash can His people's happiness be altered or impaired.\par \par Reader! learn from all this the same practical lesson we have previously enforced, "how little it matters where the locality of Heaven is. It is "with Christ." That is enough. "With ME! where I AM! " and the Christian needs no more. The last words of invitation of Jesus to His Church, when that Church is taking its transition step from the militant to the triumphant state, will be, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father!" Observe, it is not, "Go, you blessed ones, to some paradise of my providing. I am about to return to my heavenly throne. I have marked out some new Eden for you; some blissful solitude where you can reign alone\emdash but though separated from me, I have made provision for the fullest measure of joy." No! this would hush every harp, and cloud every spirit. It would be like sending them to a universe without a sun. It would be to tell them they were to be dependent on the fitful luster of glimmering stars. But it is, "COME, you blessed ones! Come with ME! I ascend to my Father and your Father\emdash to my God and your God. We go together. I will be your forerunner. I will show you the path of life. My glory is to be your glory. My gladness is to be your gladness. Enter into the joy of your Lord."\par \par In some exalted sense, may we not put the words of the apostle into the mouth of his Lord and Master, and suppose Him thus to address His saints on the Great Day\emdash "What is my joy or crown of rejoicing? Is it not you in My own presence?"\par \par The prayer of Jesus we have been considering is ascending now. It has been ascending and fulfilling for six thousand years. Though unseen to mortal eye, He, the great covenant Angel, is even now standing before the throne, with the breastplate of His unchanging priesthood. The hand that was once transfixed to the tree, is pointing to the names engraven there, and saying, "Father, I will" that those here imperishably inscribed "be with me where I am."\par \par With what solemn significance may we connect the utterance of that prayer with every believer's death. The Church on earth may be weeping and mourning over some bright light on the eve of being extinguished, wondering, perhaps, at the mysterious providence which is about to carry bereavement into a stricken household. Could they listen to the transactions in the upper sanctuary, every repining word would be hushed into silence. They would find the death-bed on earth was the answer to the request in Heaven\emdash "Father, I will;"\emdash angels hovering over it with the joyful summons, "The Master has come, and is calling for you!"\par \par Christian! exult in this "blessed hope." Covet the possession of this fullness of joy\emdash beholding Jesus as He is, rejoicing over you with all the joy of His infinite Godhead and His glorified humanity. Here we are merely among the shallows of this ocean of infinite love; what will it be when we shall be "able to comprehend with all saints, what is the height and depth, and length and breadth, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge!" (Eph. 3:18, 19)\par \par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } PPmuu14 The Mutual Joy (part 2){\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE MUTUAL JOY.\par \par "All their toils and conflicts over,\par Lo! they dwell with Christ above;\par Oh! what glories they discover\par In the Savior whom they love!\par Now  "There, are those everlasting gardens\par Where angels walk and seraphs are the wardens,\par Where every flower, brought safe through death's dark portal,\par Becomes immortal.\par Each blooming bright,\par Though some reflecting more of Heaven's all-glorious light."\par \par "One star differs from another star in glory."\emdash 1 Cor. 15:41.\par \par In that world of light, and love, and glory, all will be supremely blessed. But it is a thoroughly scriptural view of the happiness of the Redeemed in glory, to represent it, though the same in kind, as differing in degree. The saints will be classified\emdash "enrolled in moral genealogies."\par \par DIVERSITY is a law of God's universe. It extends to great things as well as to little things. Some flowers are more beautiful than others. Some intellects are more lofty than others. One planet in the skies is of greater magnitude than another. There are gradations too in the heavenly hierarchy. Angels and archangels\emdash principalities and powers\emdash "the greatest and the least" in the kingdom of heaven.\par \par And have we not reason also to believe that it will be so with glorified saints? All, indeed, will have reached their thrones and their crowns through "the only one way." We cannot speak of any of that white-robed multitude as being more justified than others; for they equally point, as the ground of their justification, to the finished work and righteousness of their adorable Surety. They all equally feel that in being saved they were "saved by grace"\emdash that nothing but the blood of that precious Lamb of God was between them and everlasting ruin! And just as one law binds the planets and the atoms which compose them; so the one great principle of love to Him who died for them, will bind together the vast family of the ransomed, from the soaring Paul to the weeping Magdalene.\par \par But the degree of the saints' happiness will be regulated according to their advances in holiness. Our blessed Lord Himself very emphatically enunciates this same truth, more especially in His parable of the Talents, where the amount of the reward is in exact proportion to diligence and fidelity in trading\emdash a parable the lesson of which the great Apostle has thus translated into one of his weighty aphorisms: "Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap," (Gal. 6:7.)\par \par Works will form no plea or ground whatever for acceptance before the throne. But while it is not said of the "blessed dead" that their works "go before them," (as a passport to their crowns;) it is said "their works do follow them," (Rev. 14:13.) There will be a vast difference between the happiness of the man who had done much for Christ on earth\emdash who had long stood "a pillar in the temple of God"\emdash and that of the monument of grace who had just been plucked at the eleventh hour "a brand from the burning."\par \par As memory, we have reason to know, will form a fearful element in the misery of the lost (Luke 16:25;) so, we may conclude, will the exercise of the same ennobled faculty form an element of exalted bliss in the case of the righteous and the saved. The recollection of all that we have done out of love to the Savior, and to promote His cause on earth\emdash the sacrifices, little though they be, we have made for Him\emdash the denial of self for the furtherance of His glory\emdash the affection we have borne to His people\emdash the pleasures we have forsworn and forgone for His sake\emdash all such will be matter of hallowed joy. Jesus will love to recount them\emdash His words will carry their approving echo through all eternity\emdash "Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me." "You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things," (Matt. 25:23, 40.)\par \par But yet, with all this diversity in bliss and glory, there will be no strife among the heavenly, as once among the earthly disciples, as to "who should be the greatest." In this present world, the race for distinction is limited and restricted; only a favored few can attain pre-eminence. "They which run" (on earth) "a race, all run, but only one receives the prize," (1 Cor. 9:24.) In Heaven, each will receive his reward. The runner may be distanced in the earthly course by his competitor\emdash not so in the heavenly. "In the race for most worldly objects, one who has prepared himself, however well, runs uncertainly, since, after all his exertions, another may outstrip him; whereas he who aids a brother in striving for the incorruptible crown, is ever benefitting Himself," (Whately.) There will be crowns with varying luster, and harps of varying tone; but, like the blending of different colors to the eye, or different notes to the ear, all will be pervaded by one beautiful harmony. The saint on the loftiest pinnacle of glory, and the saint on the outskirts of the spiritual horizon, will have the same confession\emdash "We are all one in Christ Jesus."\par \par There will, moreover, be a felt and acknowledged equity in this future retribution. The grace or virtue most assiduously cultivated by the believer on earth, will, (in subordination to God's glory,) be the main channel of his happiness in heaven. In the words of Richard Baxter, "we shall join with Moses in his song\emdash with David in his psalm of praise. We shall see Enoch walking with God\emdash Noah enjoying the end of his singularity\emdash Joseph of his in tegrity\emdash Job of his patience\emdash Hezekiah of his uprightness, and all the saints the end of their faith."\par \par On earth, the cultivation of particular branches of knowledge brings a pleasure to their possessors which is denied to those ignorant of them. The man, for example, who has cultivated the science of music, is capable of enjoying the elaborate composition and exquisite harmonies of some great master, in a way which another cannot do who has neglected this study. So likewise !in Heaven; we believe that whatever may have been the tree of righteousness\emdash the Christian grace or virtue or labor\emdash you have most assiduously nurtured and cultivated here, you will through eternity encamp under its shadow and partake of its fruits. Whatever were the desires to which your lips and your heart were most frequently attuned below, you will resume with most intense pleasure amid the sublime harmonies of "the new heavens and the new earth." Whatever kindled your luster as an earthly" star, that radiance will be perpetuated in the celestial skies. Heaven will not extinguish your earthly tastes and longings\emdash your earthly energies and activities. As a luminous orb you will still shine for God\emdash not absorbing your light, but delighting to be a holy medium in giving forth radiations to others. Not a volume bound up and put under lock and key in the library of Heaven, but continued as a living epistle to be read by other orders of intelligent beings. Not a life of dreamy inactio#n\emdash all its moral activities arrested on entering the spirit-world, but occupied in true angel-work\emdash endless ministries of love.\par \par Jesus, knowing the tastes and capacities of His ransomed, will delight to lead from fountain to fountain\emdash from scene to scene\emdash from eminence to eminence, as He knows they will be severally able to appreciate them.\par \par Oh, what an incentive is this to be "up and doing"\emdash to be adding to your faith the bright catalogue of Christian graces! Seek an "abundant entrance." It will be joy indeed, happiness far transcending earth's happiest hours, to bask as a star on the outskirts of glory. But why not be fired by the noble ambition to be near the all-glorious Center? Your crown, given by grace and sprinkled with blood, can never be dim, but why not strive now, that when the Lord the righteous judge shall reward you, you may be "found unto praise, and honor, and glory," at His second appearing?\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } ia15 Diverse Magnitudes{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 DIVERSE MAGNITUDES.\par \par &sts in hope again to rise.\par \par "Hark, the judgment-trumpet calls,\par Soul, rebuild your house of clay,\par Immortality its walls,\par And eternity its day."\par \par "He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like his glorious body." Philip. 3:21\par \par Is this frail BODY to share none of the glories of immortality? Is the decaying tenement to slumber on\emdash a heap of unconscious dust\emdash to be at last swept into annihila'tion at the dissolution of all things?\par \par "The voice said, Cry! and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is GRASS!" (the noble! the beautiful! the ornamental!) all like withering, fading grass of the field! (Isa. 40:6.) Such is the Bible's humiliating description of the body here, and it is echoed back in mournful experience from ten thousand tombstones, and ten thousand aching hearts.\par \par But "our perishable earthly bodies must be transformed into heavenly bodies that will (never die." (1 Cor. 15:53.) The resurrection-body, freed from the last vestige of corruption\emdash purged from the last taint of earthliness\emdash ennobled, purified, etherealized\emdash shall stand "without fault before the throne," the crowning and culminating triumph of the redemption work, (Rom. 8:23.)\par \par We need not dwell on nature's familiar analogies. The seed expanding into the perfect blossom\emdash the little grain of corn, buried in its tiny grave of inert clod, bursting forth) in the appointed spring-time\emdash the torpid caterpillar cradled in a dark cell\emdash a loathsome dungeon\emdash yet that dungeon becoming the birthplace of a beauteous butterfly, mounting to heaven on wings of purple and gold. These are the mute utterances of the outer world on the possibility of a truth beyond the province of reason.\par \par But Scripture comes in where reason is speechless or ambiguous. It tells me of the reconstruction of the dissolved earthly tabernacle into "a buildin*g of God eternal in the heavens." It tells more\emdash that the spiritual body is to be "fashioned" like to that of a glorified Redeemer. It tells that there is at this moment a MAN wearing a glorified Human body on the throne. "Christ, the first-fruits"\emdash the first Sheaf of the immortal harvest\emdash has been waved in the new Jerusalem temple, the pledge of the myriad sheaves that are to follow; and His saints (raised up in their bodies) will be "caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in+ the air, and so be forever with the Lord," (1 Thess. 4:17.)\par \par It is vain to attempt conjectures as to the nature of the incorruptible and glorified frame\emdash what changes will take place on the present condition of our bodily system. That there will be new powers and susceptibilities of enjoyment added to what we now possess, we have the strongest reason to believe. There will be no greater change, indeed, in a glorified state on our physical structure than is absolutely necessary. We, know, however, the dependence of the mind on the body; and it is quite possible to conceive, by a finer bodily organization, a corresponding enlargement of the mental faculties and powers. We may be deprived of some important sources of happiness at present, owing to the lack in our existing bodily frames of some necessary inlets for these. A man deprived of eyesight has a mind as susceptible as others of taking impressions of beauty; but having no organ to be the medium of their conveyance, he forfeits -the pleasures which his fellows enjoy.\par \par So, may it not be possible in heaven, by means of a more perfect bodily structure\emdash a physical frame even more "fearfully and wonderfully made" than our present one\emdash to have the way opened for new inlets of exalted enjoyment\emdash waking into energy dormant powers of which we are now as unconscious as the deaf man is of the sweets of music, or the blind man of the glories of the sun, or the tiny infant of the philosopher's speculations?.\par \par We may infer, moreover, that whatever be the nature of the change, and however vast, it will not be so vast as to destroy personal identity. We might recur to earthly analogies here also. The grown-up man has an entirely different body in its component parts from what he had as an infant. The particles which make up his material framework have again and again been renewed, yet in person he remains the same. Heaven will be the manhood of our earthly being. But though the transformation /must necessarily be great from our present "infant state," personal identity will remain undestroyed. "Then shall I know, even as also (now) I am (here) known," (1 Cor. 13.)\par \par The features of my buried friend I shall recognize again. The beaming face of cherished affection shall wear the old impress of earth\emdash no change but this, that the shifting tent is transmuted into "a building of God," reared of permanent and imperishable materials\emdash a bodily structure that shall know no d0ecrepitude\emdash smiles that shall never die\emdash new powers conferred which earth may have longed for, but never possessed\emdash all emulous for the divine glory, and instinct with burning and untiring zeal in His service!\par \par And more than all, it will be Humanity in its noblest type\emdash "fashioned like Christ's glorious body.'' There will be a family resemblance to the elder Brother, bodily, spiritually. It is said that He shall come to be "glorified" not only BY his saints, but "1IN his saints," as they bear His image, and wear His likeness. "We know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." Some of our loveliest garden flowers, are grafts from wild plants in brake and forest-thicket and hedgerow. So beauteous are these transplants as almost to belie their pedigree. Their perfect tints, and symmetrical forms, and sweet perfume, however, prove the culture and development of which the plant or flower in its native state was capable.\par \par 2 So shall it be in a far higher and nobler sense with flowers transplanted into the garden above. The glorified body! how immeasurably will it transcend in physical and moral beauty the old earthly tabernacle! "Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body." The first was "of the earth, earthy," the second is fashioned like the glorious body of "the Lord from heaven!" (1 Cor. 15:42.)\par \par Glorious body, indee3d! without sin, without pain, without weakness, or weariness, or infirmity. The thought of dissolution, which now casts its cold shadow across our path, no longer known or dreaded! Paul's earthly soliloquy changed to this, "O happy man that I am, now that I am delivered from this body of death!" The Christian's grave, however lowly, is thus "hallowed ground." There slumbers, in these clods of the valley, redeemed dust. The mausoleum of clay becomes the casket of a gem which is to sparkle through eternal ages in the Redeemer's crown!\par \par "It is the same way for the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies, which die and decay, will be different when they are resurrected, for they will never die. Our bodies now disappoint us, but when they are raised, they will be full of glory. They are weak now, but when they are raised, they will be full of power. They are natural human bodies now, but when they are raised, they will be spiritual bodies." 1 Cor. 15:42-44\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } CC7=A17 No Temple{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 T5wY%16 Glorified Bodies{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 GLORIFIED BODIES.\par \par "Grave, the guardian of our dust,\par Grave, the treasury of the skies;\par Every atom of your dust,\par Re%6imes New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 NO TEMPLE.\par \par "Jerusalem, my happy home,\par Name ever dear to me,\par When shall my labors have an end\par In joy and peace in Thee!\par \par "When shall these eyes your heaven-built walls,\par And pearly gates behold?\par Your bulwarks with salvation strong,\par 7 And streets of shining gold?\par \par "Oh, when, O city of my God,\par Shall I your courts ascend,\par Where congregations ne'er break up,\par And sabbaths have no end."\par \par "And I saw NO TEMPLE therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."\emdash Rev. 21:22.\par \par HEAVEN WITHOUT A TEMPLE! How strange, at first sight, is this figurative description! The temple was "the excellency of beauty" in the earthly Jerusa8lem. It was the place of solemnities, the sanctuary of prayer, the frequented resort of angels; no, the visible pavilion where God Himself in mystic splendor dwelt. To the exile of Patmos it had more than an Israelite's customary hallowed associations. Through its "Beautiful Gate" he had often and again passed, in company with his Divine Master. In its sacred porticos he had listened to the voice of Him who spoke as never a man spoke. But as the celestial vision now passes before him, he looks in vain, am9id the shining portals, and jasper walls, and golden-paved streets, for a similar sacred shrine. He is struck with the mysterious absence. "I saw no temple therein!"\par \par This apparent omission in the inspired picture tells us that there will be no more need of Temples in Heaven. There was no temple required in the first Eden! There our first parents, in the days of their innocence, worshiped God under the blue vault of nature's temple!\par \par The angels in heaven, so far as we k:now, have no visible sanctuary, there is nothing in their sinless world to interrupt their interchanges of love and fellowship, or to mar the cadence of their song. Sin first demanded some special localities for religious worship\emdash consecrated spots partitioned off from the world. There was no need of sheepfolds, so long as no wolf prowled abroad. But when sin and Satan gained entrance, the little flock required the sheltering refuge, wherein they might rest in safety amid "the mountains of prey," (P;s. 76:4.)\par \par As it was of old in the earthly paradise, so will it be amid the glories of "Eden restored"\emdash there will be no "present evil world" to disturb its worshipers, and render needful the quiet and seclusion of hallowed edifices, to secure the sanctities of devotion. Every place in the vast domain of Heaven will be a Temple\emdash every spot hallowed ground.\par \par Divisions, too, there will be none. Here, alas! the existence of many and separate Temples, is too oftod and the Lamb are the Temple of the universe. God's presence is all-pervading. The splendors of the visible skies are but the hangings and drapery of a more magnificent and vast temple. But I cannot now, with my feeble faculties, discern the majesty of His glory. I feel that in this "childhood-world" I am like the infant in the assembly of philosophers, who is all unconscious of the superiority of the minds around him, and can hold no fellowship with them in their lofty themes of converse. Though surrou?nded on all hands with the footprints and manifestations of a present Divinity, my befitting exclamation is, "Can you by searching find out God?" (Job 11:7.)\par \par In Heaven there is to be a vast revelation and unveiling, of a "hidden God." In the Temple on earth, He was screened by an interposing veil\emdash that veil in glory is to be withdrawn. No, I am to be enshrined in Deity! Heaven is not to be so much the temple of God, as God the temple of Heaven. His attributes are to be the walls a@nd bulwarks of my everlasting security.\par \par But this verse of our present Meditation tells us more than this. Jesus "the Lamb" is to form the "Gate Beautiful" of this Temple\emdash the Revealer of Him who dwells "in the light which no man can approach unto!" (1 Tim. 6:16.)\par \par We believe it will be as true of the glorified saint, as of the ransomed on earth, "No man has seen God at any time: the only-begotten SON who is in the bosom of the Father; he has declared him," (John A1:18.) He will be the true Angel "standing in the sun," the all-glorious medium through which we can see God and live!\par \par "The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof!" This tells me that all my knowledge will come directly from God in Christ. Now, there is needed the intervention of the Word, Ordinances, Sacraments. Then, the spiritual world will no more be lighted up by satellites; the "fairness of the moon" will give way to the "brightness of the Sun;"\emdash the starlightB will be quenched and superseded by the Great Spiritual Luminary. "You have but now and then seen your Beloved looking through the lattice of ordinances\emdash what a burst of joy awaits you when you shall see Him face to face, and evermore be with Him!" (Miss Plumptre.)\par \par Yes, indeed, ineffable bliss! fullness of joy! No more yearning desires after "something better;"\emdash the infinite all-satisfying "good" attained\emdash as happy as everlasting goodness and wisdom and omnipotence canC make me. My feeble voice swelling the joyous anthem within temple-walls whose only confines are light and love.\par \par Is my title clear to this glorious Heaven? Am I fitted now to be the inhabitant of such a Temple?\emdash to dwell with God, (yes, in God,) occupying these inner chambers of Deity? Heaven is a City. It is an amazing privilege the thought of reigning there as King. But not less elevating, surely, the thought of Heaven as a Temple, where I shall be occupied as a ministering prieDst\emdash "a priest unto God"\emdash ready to cast my censer as well as my crown at His feet, and "offer the sacrifice of praise continually!"\par \par Be it mine to prepare for the priestly work. "Holiness to the Lord," was written on the high priest's frontlet of old. Let it be my superscription now. Let the eye of faith delight to dwell especially on the great High Priest\emdash He who, as the Covenant Angel, is interceding for me; and who, through eternity, will form the blood-besprinkled enEtrance, the ever-open gate conducting into the Holy Place. There may, and doubtless will be many other lofty anthems that shall resound in that temple; but "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain," will ever be the most sublime chant of the Church of the first-born. We shall exult in its other glories. But it will be the inscription over the portal that will be the theme of eternity\emdash "Boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus."\par \par "Far beyond the grave's dark night,\par What bright TEMPLE meets my sight?\par Softly stealing on the ear,\par What strange music do I hear?\par 'Tis the golden harps on high,\par 'Tis the chorus of the sky!\par "Give my soul the spotless dress\par Of Your perfect righteousness;\par Then, at length, a welcome guest,\par I shall enter to the feast,\par Take the harp and raise the song,\par All Your ransomed ones among."\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } Gnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE GLORIOUS TRANSITION.\par \par "There still my thoughts are dwelling,\par 'Tis there I long to be;\par Come, Lord, and call Your servant\par To blessedness with Thee!\par Come, bid my toils be ended\emdash\par Let all my wanderings cease;\par Call from the wHayside lodging\par To the sweet home of peace."\emdash Gerhardt.\par \par "Absent from the body, and at home with the Lord." \emdash 2 Cor. 5:8.\par \par Again the curtain of glory is lifted, and what do we see? The emancipated spirit bursting its cocoon shell\emdash soaring upwards on immortal wings to be "with the Lord," and that "forever!" We are interested in the first look we get of "a great man" on earth. What must the first glance be in heaven\par of JESUS!\emdIash that mystic name which has here put music into the heart in many a dark hour, and lighted up its wilderness with a halo of joy! If Jacob longed intently to see Joseph, what will be the saint's ardent desire to gaze on the true Joseph\emdash Him whom his "soul loves!" Yes, on entering heaven, it will not be the burning ranks of angel and archangel, cherubim and seraphim, that will fix his arrested gaze. His exclamation will be, as his eye wanders upwards to the central Throne, and settles on a CountenaJnce there beaming with unutterable loveliness\emdash "Is that indeed the Savior, whom, though so long unseen, I have nevertheless loved!"\par \par And what shall he see? It will be the same Lord to whose sublime utterances of love he has so often listened in thought, as eighteen hundred years ago He "spoke as never a man spoke." The same Being who wept, and groaned, and sympathized, and suffered. He will think of Him at Sychar's well\emdash on Tabor\emdash on Tiberias\emdash on Olivet\emdash by Kthe Kedron\emdash at Bethany\emdash at Calvary. It is "that same Jesus"\emdash He who once lay in a borrowed cradle, a helpless babe at Bethlehem; He who spoke comfortable words to the bereaved, and gave back to widowed and yearning hearts their perished joys; He who invited the weary to rest, and never scorned the penitent's tears, or left unhelped the call of mercy; He who lay convulsed in anguish on the cold ground of Gethsemane; He who bowed His head on the bitter tree; He who met the weeping Mary witLh words of joy as she stood disconsolate by His grave, and addressed Peter with the gentlest and most tender of rebukes. I shall see (if I be one of His ransomed people) "that same Jesus"\emdash I shall enjoy with Him near and confidential communion, and nothing shall ever separate me from His love!\par \par Of old, some of the transient earthly glimpses of this Savior were blessed and consoling. If it were gladdening when Jacob saw Him in His angel-form at Peniel\emdash or aged Simeon clasped HMim in his withered arms in the temple\emdash or the disciples beheld Him on Tabor\emdash or Martha and Mary wept with Him at Bethany\emdash or when the beloved apostle leaned on His bosom, met Him on the way to Emmaus, or on the lonely shores of Patmos; what will it be to have these seasons of communion renewed without their transience\emdash to bask through eternal years under the radiance of His smile\emdash His own words obtaining an everlasting fulfillment\emdash "Where I AM, there shall also my servaNnt be!"\par \par Here, too, we are again reminded that means and agencies will be required no longer in His communications with us. The streams will come welling fresh from the living fountain\emdash the rays will be untainted and undimmed by transmission through any impurer medium\emdash there will be personal communings between every saint and his living Head\emdash "They shall see His face." Whatever may be the believer's relation to the infinite circumference of heaven\emdash to the thrones,O and dominions, and principalities, and powers\emdash he will be ever near to the all-glorious Center! "He," it has been well said, "who is now in every saint the hope of glory, will then be in every saint the possession, realization, and fullness of glory." (Cheever's "Windings")\par \par And, observe from our motto verse, it is an immediate transition. The spirit, "with a bound," at the hour of death, as it forsakes its earthly tabernacle, enters the Divine presence and the heavenly Home. Be aPssured, Paul would never have uttered the wish for departure, in order to lapse into a mesmeric trance or lethargic slumber. Never would he have used such language as this\emdash "We are confident" (we are bold, as the word means, in the prospect of death) "and willing rather to be absent from the body," if he had any less elevating desire and prospect than to be "present with the Lord." Far rather would he have remained on earth, enjoying the blessed experiences of the Savior's felt presence and love, anQd the consciousness of promoting His cause, than to have passed into a state of dreamy, drowsy insensibility and torpor. The exchange, in such circumstances, would have been a positive diminishing of blessedness. It would have been the withdrawal from active work and warfare in the Church below\emdash an inglorious transition for his hero-spirit. Dungeon, chains, watching, fasting, stripes and sufferings with Christ on earth, would have been, to a soul like his, infinitely preferable to such a state of slRumbrous oblivion and unconsciousness. But he specially guards us against any such supposition: "Not," says he, "that we would be unclothed"\emdash not that I long merely to leave the trammels of the flesh, in order to escape from the encumbering clay\emdash "but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, that mortality might be swallowed up of life," (2 Cor. 5:4.)\par \par Am I prepared for this presence? am I living under the power of this "blessed hope?" Were I to be ushered into the presence oSf an earthly sovereign, how careful would I be in my preparation for so regal a privilege! What shall it be in the prospect of appearing before Him in comparison with whom the loftiest monarch of earth is but as a passing shadow\emdash an atom of dust\emdash the mote of a sunbeam! "Present with the Lord!" What an honor! The brightest of those bright and holy beings who bow before His throne with adoring reverence, know no higher!\par \par "It is not here on earth," says the author of the 'Saint'Ts Rest,' "that He has prepared the presence-chamber of His glory; He has drawn the curtain between us and Him; we are far from Him as creatures, and farther as frail mortals, and farthest as sinners." Death is the dressing-room, where the ragged pilgrim-garment is thrown off, and where, as glorified guests, we shall receive our wedding attire. But the barrier shall in due time be taken down, and we shall be ushered amid the uncurtained splendors of the "new heavens and the new earth." Then shall His own voice be heard announcing the believer's consummated bliss, and its mightiest element\emdash "Enter into the joy of Your Lord."\par \par "The pains of death are past,\par Labor and sorrow cease;\par And life's long warfare closed at last,\par His soul is found in peace.\par \par "Soldier of Christ, well done!\par Praise be your new employ;\par And while eternal ages run,\par Rest in your Savior's joy."\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } =u18 The Glorious Transition{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fFWeity!"\emdash Thomas A Kempis.\par \par "So that God may be all in all."\emdash 1 Cor. 15:28.\par \par We may shift and alter the heavenly kaleidoscope, but God is still the center of its ineffable bliss\emdash "the glory of its glory." In union and communion with Him alone, will the longings of the immortal spirit be at length fully and forever satisfied.\par \par Existence is one long endeavor after some infinite good. The disciples of Plato, in their gropings in the dark, Xaspired after a mystical, undefined "Fullness," the possession of which was associated with perfect happiness. This mythical dream of pagan philosophy has its reality in "the fullness of Him that fills all in all." Here on earth, we have at best only some feeble foretastes of the "fullness of God"\emdash some sips at the earthly fountain\emdash what shall it be when we come to stand on the margin of the infinite ocean! Ask the angels who are now peopling that world of bliss\emdash or the myriads of ransomYed saints whose probation is finished and their glorification begun, in what their supreme happiness consists. Their response would be in words they had often before used, but whole true meaning they had only learned in Glory\emdash "It is good for us to draw near unto GOD," (Ps. 73:28.)\par \par The best earthly types of Heaven in Scripture were designedly imperfect. How often, for example, was the earthly Zion spoken of as the pattern and image of the Heavenly. But even in this "perfection of Zbeauty" there were defects and blemishes. No river (save the tiniest of brooks) flowed past its walls. No war-ship(as in other earthly capitals) was ever seen sailing by, or ship of commerce unlading its stores. "But," says God, in beautiful allusion to these needs in the earthly Zion, "I shall come in place of them in the Jerusalem above." "The Lord will be our Mighty One. He will be like a wide river of protection that no enemy can cross," (Isa. 33:21.)\par \par All other joys will be but refl[ections of the Great joy. We shall be independent of starlight blessings when we have the central sun\emdash of the rivulet when we have the ocean. Were the alternative presented, rather would the ranks of the glorified have God without Heaven, than Heaven without God. There will be a devout consciousness throughout all their wide circle of a sweet and holy dependence on Him. They will never forget the pilgrim prayer of earth\emdash "Hold me up, and I shall be safe," (Ps. 119:117.) They will feel, even wi\th the crown on their head and the victor-song on their lips, that it is He alone who makes them to dwell in safety, (Ps. 4:8.) They will live upon no graces. Pensioners on earth, they will exult in the feeling that they are pensioners still. The confession of time will be the anthem of eternity\emdash "By the grace of God we are what we are," (Rom. 15:10.)\par \par We read of the saints that, glorified though they be, they still "fall down before the throne," (Rev. 4:10.) Their ascription, crow]ned though they be, is this, "Salvation to our God who sits upon the throne," (Rev. 7:10.) The stream may sooner do without its fountain\emdash the parched furrow without its refreshing shower\emdash the sky without its sun\emdash than they without Him who is the source and fountain-head of all life, and light, and joy. "God himself shall be with them and be their God, and they shall see His face," (Rev. 21:3.) The infinite center of an infinite circumference, they shall love all in Him, and Him in all! N^ot more surely on earth do the rivers run to the ocean, than in Heaven will every aspiration of the Church triumphant be turned Godwards; and it will be our happiness thus supremely to love\emdash supremely to adore Him.\par \par Here on earth, how often, how constantly, has the Christian to watch over the objects of his love, lest ever and anon he be betrayed into some sinful excess of idolatrous attachment. There will be no such bound set in Heaven, because no such need for it. What a glory it_ imparts to the soul of man\emdash what an ennobling consciousness it gives of our true dignity\emdash future communion with, yes, future assimilation to, the great Jehovah!\emdash gravitating towards Him as an all-glorious center\emdash the aim and object of an infinite existence, perfectly to please Him!\par \par Let me prepare for this lofty destiny, by making God more than ever "the portion of my inheritance;" having a more constant and habitual aim that His will and glory be the regulators `of my daily being. This was my Savior's desire for Himself. It constituted the happiness of His spotless life\emdash doing His Father's will and not His own. "I do think," says Lady Powerscourt, "one chief part of our happiness hereafter will consist in our being done with wretched SELF\emdash God being all in all." Oh! what a solemnizing influence would it exert on all our thoughts and feelings, our duties and engagements, our pursuits and pleasures, our sleeping and waking, our airy visions and worldly plans, were we to think that soon\emdash very soon\emdash we shall be with God, and that forever and ever!\par \par "Blessed fold! no foe can enter,\par And no friend departs thence:\par God Himself their Sun, their Center,\par And their Shield Omnipotence.\par \par "Thought, repress your weak endeavor,\par Here must Reason prostrate fall;\par Oh th' ineffable forever,\par And th' eternal ALL IN ALL!"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } 88Qi19 The All in All{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE ALL IN ALL.\par \par "Every voice is then harmonious,\par Praising God in hymns symphonious,\par Love each heart with light enfolding,\par As they stand in peace beholding\par There the Triune-DVcailings blend not with the voice of spring,\par As some too tender flowret fades and dies.\par \par "With Hope our guide,\par White-robed and innocent, to tread the way,\par Why fear to plunge in Jordan's rolling tide,\par And find the haven of eternal day?"\par \par "For I reckon, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."\emdash Rom. 8:18.\par \par Thus does a mastder-hand strike the balance between present sufferings and future glory. "I reckon" (I make the calculation, and the deliberate result is), that the trials of earth are not to be named in contrast or companion with the peerless joys of Heaven.\par \par The great Apostle was one specially fitted to make such a calculation. He himself was abundantly acquainted in the school of suffering, and well able therefore to cast up the balance-sheet. Few pilgrims that ever trod the lower valley, were more hoenored than he; but few had greater weights to carry. He felt, however, that all these earthly weights added together and combined, were far outweighed by one other, and that was the "weight of glory."\par \par His language here is remarkable. He institutes a comparison between present suffering and future bliss\emdash two things which we may think cannot well be compared. May not the following have been a few points of antithesis which suggested themselves, as His mind made the sanctified reckonfing?\par \par All present sufferings have intervals of release. There are lulls in the storm. The fevered patient may have his snatches of repose, fitful and unrefreshing though they be. But in the glory that is to follow, there are no intervals, no lulls, no ebbings in the ever-advancing tide of happiness and joy.\par \par In the sufferings of this life there are many alleviations. The bitterest cup is mingled with some sweet drops\emdash the most aching soul is seldom without some sugpporting solaces. But the glory which follows knows no modifications. The golden vessels there are indeed always filling\emdash always increasing, but they are always full. The "just made perfect," though ever aspiring after fresh draughts of the living fountain, will never be heard uttering the voice of complaint\emdash "Oh, that it were with me as in months past!" The glory is a progressive glory\emdash the joy a progressive joy\emdash their change is a change for the better, never for the worse.\par \hpar The sufferings of the present, in the case of the believer, much as they may cloud and darken his earthly and outward happiness, cannot affect the unassailable bliss of his inner life. But the heavenly glory will interpenetrate alike his outer and his inner being. He will be steeped in bliss! He will have around and on every side of him a glory which imagination has never ventured to conceive\emdash while his glorified spirit will reflect, without speck or stain, the image of an all-glorious iGod!\par \par "The sufferings of the present!" Go up to that bright and glorious multitude harping with their harps, and crowding the shores of the glassy sea. Hear their one, united testimony. It is, that but for their trials they would never have been there. Every page in their history bears the signet-mark of "much tribulation." It is endorsed with the words, "So He brought them to their desired haven!" "So!" It was by a way not of their own choosing. "So!" It was through winds, and waves, anjd buffeting elements\emdash the ship tacking about\emdash "neither sun nor stars for many days appeared, and no small tempest lay upon them." They love now to trace all the mystic windings in that untoward voyage; the "deep calling to deep"\emdash the wave responding to wave. They love to think, "It was thus He brought me!" There was a time when I was prone to question His wisdom\emdash to arraign His faithfulness; but now, I realize that could not have lacked one thorn, one bitter drop, one tear.\par \pkar As the contrary winds which carry high the migratory birds are found in reality to assist their flight, so with the soul; when the winds are contrary\emdash the storm beating fiercely\emdash it only leads it to soar higher and higher\emdash upwards and heavenwards\emdash further from earth\emdash nearer its God! Oh, if we only saw our trials, not through the misty haze of this world, but in the light of eternity; the reckoning would not be this, how little they have been, but how precious theyl have been! How all (yes, all) were needed to effect the desired end, all were composite parts of one way, and that way was love! It is with the believer as with the diamond; the more facets there are, the brighter it sparkles; so, the more the tools of sanctified affliction have been on him, the brighter and more gloriously will he shine in heaven!\par \par Let me seek, then, to look beyond these portals of sadness, and repose on the glory that is to be revealed. Soon the curfew-bell of time wimll toll, telling that the fires of affliction and trial are extinguished forever, and that the weary and jaded citizens\emdash the weary Church\emdash may now retire to the rest which remains for the people of God! "Live in Christ," says Rutherford, "and you are in the suburbs of heaven. There is but a thin wall between you and the land of praises. You are within one hour's sailing of the shore of the new Canaan."\par \par It is a mighty procession that is sweeping onwards to the Land of Promisen. A sainted writer has beautifully compared it to the vast host of Israel entering the earthly Canaan. Some had crossed Jordan; their footsteps were treading the covenanted soil, the land of the patriarchs\emdash others were passing through the river-channel, the waters standing up to make a way "for the ransomed to pass over;"\emdash others were patiently occupying their allotted place in the rear, until those that preceded them had traversed the dry bed of the border river. But all were moving on; and tohose furthest behind knew that every tread of their footstep was bringing them nearer the moment when their desert trials and privations would be at an end, and their voices too would blend in the song of victory. And so it is with the Church of God on earth. Some are already in heaven\emdash the glorified, safe on the Canaan side. Some are at this moment crossing the Jordan of death\emdash the dark river separating the wilderness from the heavenly land. Some are still in the pilgrim rear, amid the smouldpering fires and ashes of their encampment, casting a longing glance towards those who have already begun their everlasting ascription of praise. But the mighty mass moves on! The desert is retreating and the heavenly shores are nearing. Thousands on thousands of the ransomed Israel of God are already safe landed\emdash "clean escaped," and their triumphant song should only inspire us with fresh ardor to follow their steps and share their crowns! The true Joshua-Jesus, the Heavenly Precursor, is even now sqtanding on the celestial shore, and to every faint and toil-worn traveler proclaiming, "These sufferings are not to be compared with the glory about to be revealed!"\par \par How the thought of that blessed Heaven of eternal respite and rest, should reconcile me to any trial the Lord may see meet to lay upon me here! It was the prospect of future glory which led this heavenly reckoner to make so little of his earthly trials. He called that a "light affliction," which he had borne for thirty yearrs!\par \par Let me often school myself in the devout arithmetic of the tried Apostle\emdash putting all my trials into one scale, and all the blessings, from grace to glory, which my God bestows, into the other, and then dare I murmur?\par \par Lord! it is my prayer that my trial (my peculiar trial), be what it may, may be sanctified. It is a "muffled drum" in the march of life; but it is beating "Home, brothers! home!" Let every promise of Scripture seem as if a bright angel hung out sfrom the skies a guiding signal, saying, "The darkness will soon be past, and the true light will shine!" "Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry," and then, the reckonings of earthly trial will give way to the reckonings of unending bliss. The voice of the Beloved will thus be heard calling on His weeping Bride to dry every tear and prepare for a tearless home\emdash "Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth. The time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away!"\emdash (Song of Sol. 2:12.)\par \par "Wherever my path\par On earth shall lead, I'll keep a nesting bough\par For Hope, the song-bird, and with cheerful step\par Hold on my pilgrimage, remembering where\par Flowers have no autumn-languor, Eden's gate\par No flaming sword, to guard the tree of life."\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } +e20 Suffering and Glory{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 SUFFERING AND GLORY.\par \par "The storm's black wing\par Is never spread athwart celestial skies;\par Its wbvone and all,\par Ready stand,\par For the heavenly festival\par Is at hand!\par \par "Come at last the nuptial day;\par Tears forever passed away\emdash\par Fled the prison-house\emdash the clay,\par And the thrall; Christ forever your sure stay,\par And your all!"\par \par "Blessed are those who are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb."\emdash Rev. 19:9.\par \par Under a new and beautiful symbol, we are calwled to behold Jesus as the Heavenly Bridegroom, seated at His own marriage-feast, summoning His glorified guests around Him!\emdash the true Solomon, "crowned in the day of His espousals, and the day of the gladness of His heart!" (Song of Sol. 3:11.) "Alone," says a writer, "in the depths of eternity stood Christ and His Church before the altar of that divine espousal; none was witness but the Father and the Holy Spirit when the vow was plighted, and the contract sealed," (Butler.)\par \par Butx all Heaven is now to be spectator of the gladsome consummation. The bridal-day has come! He has "sent His angels with a great sound of a trumpet to gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other," and lo! a multitude which no man can number, "all-glorious within, their clothing of wrought gold," are seen passing through the gates of the city "with gladness and rejoicing," on their way to the King's palace! The Bride for six thousand weary years has been calling for hery Lord to "Come!" The voice of the Beloved has at last been heard; the King has "brought her into His banqueting-house, and His banner over her is love!" (Song of Sol. 2:4.)\par \par In that scene of festive joy, behold\emdash\par \par (1.) Jesus Glorified.\par "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." Oh, what a moment of joy will that be to the Church's Divine Head, when all His blood-bought people (not one of the sealed myriads missing) shall be assezmbled with Him to share His bliss\emdash "betrothed unto Him forever;" "presented a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing!" If "Wisdom" rejoiced in the mere anticipation of redemption\emdash if even then His "delights were with the sons of men" dwelling in "the habitable parts of the earth," (Prov. 8:31,) what will the rejoicing be, when the vast undertaking is all completed, and the trophies of His grace are seated by His side! What a new and more glorious meaning will be given t{o His words of intercession on earth: "All yours are mine, and mine are yours, and I am glorified in them!" (John 17:10.) It is their glory and joy in which much of His own mediatorial happiness will consist. As "the Master," He girds Himself at the marriage-feast, and "comes forth to serve them," (Luke 12:37.) He has them in view in His every thought of Heaven: "I go to prepare a place for you, \'85that where I am, there you may be also"\emdash "I shall drink no more of the fruit of the vine until I drin|k it new with you in my Father's kingdom," (John 14:2, 3; Matt. 26:29.)\par \par (2.) Behold the Church glorified.\par "Called" to the Master's immediate presence, not to eat of the crumbs falling from His table, but of the children's bread; to see His face; to participate in His triumph; and with faith changed into sight, and hope into full fruition, to exclaim, "My Beloved is mine, and I am his!" (Song of Sol. 2:16.)\par \par Seated at the wedding-feast! What nearness and in}timacy of fellowship is here indicated! Even on earth, the believer's most blissful hours are those spent in intimate communion with his Lord. How the pain and weariness of the sickbed are alleviated\emdash how the pang of the crushing bereavement has been mitigated, by that Presence and Name which puts music and joy into the saddest heart! What will it be in glory, with no sin to mar our communion, and no sorrow to dim our eye\emdash the consummated union and communion of everlasting love! Truly, the glo~rified guests will be able to say to their heavenly Lord, as was said in His hearing at a marriage-feast on earth, "You have kept the best wine until now!" (John 2:10.)\par \par On that coronation-day of the Church triumphant, angels will listen with amazement, as each ransomed one tells the story of blended grace and faithfulness\emdash principalities and powers will stoop to hear the Church's perpetual new song, the keynote of which will be, "the manifold wisdom of God!" (Eph. 3:10.) It will not be with the disciples in heaven as with the disciples below. When they got a momentary glimpse of their Lord's glory on Tabor, we read, "They feared as they entered the cloud," (Luke 9:34.) Perfect love will then cast out fear. It is no stranger\emdash no inaccessible, awe-inspiring Being who is to gather them around Him. It will indeed be a day of Kingly espousals. On His head there will be "many crowns." The Bride will "enter the King's palace," (Ps. 45:15.) It will be a regal\emdash a coronation anthem that will be sung by the lips of the hundred and forty four thousand, "Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent REIGNS," (Rev. 19:6.)\par \par But it is also called the "marriage-supper of the Lamb;"\emdash "that same Jesus" who in His person is so well known to us on earth\emdash whose character and life are so beautifully and truthfully portrayed in what we may call His four inspired biographies, that we seem to feel as if we knew Him\emdash knew Him intimately\emdash had seen Him\emdash had sat with Him on Tiberias' shores, and talked with Him at Jacob's well, and wept with Him at the Bethany grave! We enjoy to be with those who have been kind to us; who so kind as "the MAN Christ Jesus!" what fellowship so blissful as with the all-glorious One, who has loved us with a love, in comparison with which the most endearing earthly friendship is coldness itself! How joyous when He shall meet us at the threshold of glory, and conduct us to the coronation-hall, to receive our crowns, and to become guests at His table!\par \par (3.) Behold here a holy and happy meeting between guest and guest.\}\par The improper estrangements of the present will there be unknown forever. Cold looks, and averted faces, and distant and uncordial recognitions, will be all at an end. The guests will only wonder they could have allowed petty differences to have sundered them so long and so strangely below. Like their beloved Lord, they will become like one another. Many a Christian on earth, we believe, is nearer in heart and love and sympathy to a brother Christian, than the conventional distinctions\emdash the Shibboleth of sect and party\emdash will permit him to avow. In Heaven there will be no such reserve. The slumbering harmonies of the heart will then break forth, without one jarring note.\par \par Let me delight often to carry my eye onward to the celebration of these espousals\emdash to draw aside the world's scenes of painted glory, and to get a sight of "the invisible"\emdash the great Sabbath of eternity inaugurated by this nuptial festival, where every redeemed Vessel, like the earthly types at Cana, are "filled to the brim;" Jesus, who went forth from His eternal throne as the weeping "Man of sorrows," now come again with rejoicing, to bring all His ransomed sheaves with Him! (Ps. 126:6.)\par \par "Will you not," says Baxter, "be almost ready to draw back, and say, 'What! I, Lord? I, the unworthy neglecter of Your grace, dis-esteemer of Your blood, and slighter of Your love, may I have this glory? I am utterly unworthy to be called a son.' But Love will have it so. Therefore you must enter into His joy."\par \par "The watchers on the mountain\par Proclaim the Bridegroom near;\par Go, meet Him as He comes,\par With hallelujahs clear.\par \par "The marriage-feast is waiting,\par The gates wide open stand;\par Up! up! you heirs of glory,\par The Bridegroom is at hand.\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } m)22 The Brimming Fountain{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbCe121 The Marriage-supper{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE MARRIAGE SUPPER.\par \par "Open is the starry hall;\par Hear you! 'tis the Bridegroom's call!\par Holy virgins, ul{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE BRIMMING FOUNTAIN.\par \par "Blessed day which hastens fast,\par End of conflict and of sin,\par Death itself shall die at last,\par Fullness of all joy begin.\par Then eternity shall prove\par God is Light and God is Love!"\par \par "In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore."\emdash Psalm 16:11.\par \par FULLNESS of joy! Can that be said of anything on this side Heaven? There is a restless craving in the human bosom for something better than this world can give.\par \par "Although its heart is rich in pearls and ores,\par The sea complains upon a thousand shores;\par Sea-like, we moan forever. We are weak\emdash\par We ever hunger for diviner stores."\par \par There are aching voids\emdash deep, yawning chasms in the soul of man, which the world and all its tinsel pleasures can never fill. Hope is ever gilding the future with the prospect of that happiness which the present denies. Lured and dazzled, the worldling pursues the phantom. But each successive failure more painfully convinces him that all here is a delusion. Happiness, the object of his life-search, is as far from him as ever!\par \par These longings of the heart are only satisfied when it finds in God its "fullness of joy." The old nature, like the old philosophy, will cleave to the world as the center of its system. It holds its happiness to consist in "minding earthly things." The new nature, like Copernicus, finds out "the secret hid from ages and generations." It dethrones a usurping earth, and makes all its affections circle and constellate around God Himself, the true "Sun of the soul." What will this be in that blessed world of purity, where there will be no disturbing forces to interfere with the saint's spiritual orbit, or dim and darken the emanations from the great Source of light and life, happiness and joy!\par \par Happiness even on earth is proportioned to the worthiness of the object on which our hearts are fixed in connection with it. What must be the happiness of the glorified spirit which has its affections centered on Him who is unsearchable in His wisdom, boundless in His resources, unchanging in His love! David said regarding earthly things\emdash "I have seen an end of all perfection." In Heaven the soul will have, in the enjoyment of God, the perfection of bliss. All the perfection of earth is finite; that of heaven is infinite. All earthly bliss has its bounds and limits; in Heaven and in God's presence that bliss will be unbounded.\par \par Think of the happiness of having no unfulfilled desire, nothing to be dreaded, nothing to be delivered from! To have the vision and fruition of God to guarantee all, and stamp permanency and immutability on every joy. Insecurity is the attribute of all worldly joys. Ours today, they may be gone tomorrow. How the thought of the slender tie which binds to life must haunt the idolater of earthly affection!\emdash that in the twinkling of an eye the cup of creature-love may be dashed from his lips\emdash his most fondly cherished fabric become a heap of humiliating ruins! often in one's happiest moments we have (do as we like) the chilling forebodings of coming trial\emdash the feeling, All this cannot last. This gladsome music\emdash earth's high holiday\emdash may this night give place to the dirge of sorrow!\par \par In Heaven, "our sun shall go down no more." No real or imagined evils will loom in a troubled future\emdash the music of its eternal festival will never be suspended or hushed by the intrusion of sadder notes. Here, one main source of the believer's joy is in the words, "no condemnation!" There, it will rather be, "no separation!" His sorrow will be turned into joy, and that joy no one will take from him. The wheat will be "gathered into the garner." So long as it is unharvested\emdash standing in the open field\emdash it is exposed to furious winds and corroding rains. But the angel-reapers have made it secure. These garnered sheaves of bliss are as safe as everlasting love and faithfulness and power can make them!\par \par And while it is "fullness of joy," (denoting its perfection) and "pleasures for evermore," (denoting their security) let us not forget the nobler and grander attribute of that heavenly bliss\emdash "In Your presence." Is it this which is drawing me to Heaven\emdash the prospect of being admitted into union and communion with my God? Some are eager to leave this world, because they have been the victims of disappointed hope and crossed affections. In a fit of morbid moroseness, they hate life, and look to the grave as a refuge from its ills! Am I conscious of nobler and loftier motives in my heavenward aspirations? Is it the thought of seeing GOD, enjoying GOD, loving GOD, which is drawing me there? Other hallowed ties and motives I may have, beckoning me upwards. Voices hushed on earth may be stealing down, in tones of celestial music, from the spirit-land\emdash "The Bride" (the blessed dead, among whom my fondest earthly memories linger) maybe saying, "Come." But do I feel that even such a sacred incentive as this, is subordinate to the voice of the Bridegroom?\emdash that these are but star-light glories, compared to the meridian sun\emdash "the glory that excels?" Oh! how wondrous the thought that God's pleasures are to be my pleasures\emdash that I am to be linked through eternity in congeniality of sentiment and enjoyment, with essential goodness, essential greatness, essential love! I will rejoice in God, and the Lord my God will rejoice over me. He shall make me to "drink of the river of His pleasures!" (Ps. 36:8.)\par \par And soon\emdash very soon\emdash all this happiness may be mine. A few more beats of the pulse\emdash a few more falling grains of the sandglass, and I may be by that river's brink, washing off the dust and scars of battle, and bathing in the floods of ineffable joy! Meanwhile, let me seek to aspire after closer and more intimate communion with God, so as to feel that no blessing on earth can be comparable to His favor, and no loss equal to the forfeiture of His love. Let me often think of death as the moment which will admit me into the full possession of this transcendent bliss; and see the promises of the gospel, like so many lights hung out from the windows of my Father's house, beckoning me Home!\par \par "Onwards, upwards may I move,\par Wafted on the wings of love;\par Looking, Lord, for You to come,\par Longing for my heavenly home;\par There forever to remain,\par Partner of Your endless reign;\par There Your face unveiled to see,\par Find my Heaven of Heaven in THEE!"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } ; and upward, from earth's tribulation, came a soul, whose passport, signed in Calvary's blood, prevailed. Around the golden threshold's verge I saw the dazzling of celestial wings thronging to welcome it. The towering form of an archangel bore it company up to God's throne!"\par \par "TODAY shall you be with me in paradise."\emdash Luke 23:43\par \par WHEN shall I be admitted into this glorious Heaven\emdash to pluck for myself the Grapes of Eschol, and enjoy the sweets of the true Land of Promise? Does the hour of death usher me at once into the mansions of my heavenly Father? or is there some intermediate state of purification, preparatory to being introduced into the presence of the Lord? Is the disembodied spirit destined meanwhile to remain in dream-land\emdash a condition of unconsciousness and torpor\emdash until awakened by the trumpet of God, along with the risen and glorified body, on the resurrection morning?\par \par We have already seen, in a previous Meditation, that the Bible answer is explicit. We may return for a little, to ponder the same comforting theme. There is an "immediate entrance." The same moment in which I close my eyes on a world of sin and suffering, I open them in glory! Whenever I pass through the swellings of Jordan, my feet shall touch the shores of "the better country;"\emdash that day I am "with Jesus in paradise!"\par \par Paul's verdict, as we previously noted, is conclusive: "Having a desire to depart and to BE WITH CHRIST," (Phil. 1:23.) Can we suppose he would have expressed this longing desire to leave his work\emdash to abandon his apostleship\emdash to forego the delight of winning souls to Jesus\emdash if his spirit, in leaving this earth, was to slumber in a state of inaction and unconsciousness until the 'day of God'? We can conceive of no other possible consideration but the thought of being ushered into the immediate presence of his Lord, that could make it to him a "gain to die." Nothing BUT this instantaneous beatific vision and fruition could have led him to add the strong assertion, "which is far better," (Phil. 1:23.)\par \par Again, how does he speak of the dissolution of the earthly tent ("tabernacle")? He seldom speaks more confidently. His words are expressed in the authoritative and confident formula of a creed, "We KNOW that if this house of our earthly tabernacle is dissolved, We HAVE a building of God," (2 Cor. 5:1.) The pin is taken out\emdash the cord is slipped\emdash the tent is down! But "immediately" a nobler and more imperishable structure rises\emdash "a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens!"\par \par Why would he urge, in another place\emdash as an incentive to believers to run the Christian race\emdash that they are gazed upon by a cloud of sainted witnesses, (Heb. 12.,) (mentioned in the previous context,) if "the spirits of the just" remain in a state of unconsciousness until the final resurrection?\par \par Can we suppose that Stephen, as he gazed upwards from his martyr-pillow on "the general assembly and church of the first-born," uttered an unanswered prayer, when he said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit"? (Acts 7:59.) No, rather, when he saw his Lord "standing at the right hand of God," can we think the beautiful comment of Chrysostom an unnatural one, that the Savior rose and stooped from His throne, to receive with outstretched arms the spirit of the first of that "noble army of martyrs," who were afterwards to "praise Him?"\par \par Our blessed Lord's own teaching is all confirmatory of the same view. It was no mere accidental embellishment, surely, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, but an essential part of the truth it was intended to convey, when the angels are represented as carrying the spirit of the beggar into Abraham's bosom; and His words here to the dying thief are themselves (independent of all other proof) sufficient to set at rest this comforting assurance, that the gate of death and the gate of glory are one!\par \par Vision adds its attestation to parable\emdash for the ransomed multitude are represented now in glory, "standing before the throne" with "palms in their hands," (Rev. 7:9.) Thrice blessed thought! The uncaged spirit will all at once fly upwards to nestle in the golden eaves of Heaven! The saint, when he enters glory, can say, in the words of one of earth's inspired songs regarding the death-bed he has just left, "I laid me down and slept\emdash I awaked, for the Lord sustained me!" (Ps. 3:5.) "This is none other than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven!" (Gen. 28:17.) "Faithful souls," says Richard Baxter, "no sooner leave their pinions of flesh, but angels will be their convoy, Christ, with all the perfected spirits of the just, will be their companions, heaven will be their residence, and God their happiness." No wonder that Paul with such a blessed certainty could say, "We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord," (2 Cor. 5:8.)\par \par It is true, indeed, that though "the souls of believers are at death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory," their full and perfect glorification does not then take place. The great coronation-day of the Church triumphant must come, before the saint ("complete in Christ") is invested with all his purchased privileges. The body until then, slumbers in weakness and dishonor. Its reunion with the spirit must take place\emdash the grave must be rifled of its treasures\emdash before the Divine Victor has reaped in all His trophies, and the believer receive full investiture of his rights. A writer beautifully speaks of the "blessed dead," as "a silent and veiled company, like the gathering worshipers of earth resting side by side until the bells cease, and vacant places fill, and all begin to sing one anthem." But be their present intermediate condition (shall we call it) what it may, they are with Christ\emdash that is enough.\par \par "With me!" Safe in the presence of their adorable Redeemer. The needle at last fixed true to its pole\emdash all the old earthly vibrations and oscillations at an end. The ship, with all its tossings over, has reached its port, cast anchor in "the Rock" within the veil! The sun-flower drooped only for a moment in the evening of life, as the death-shades fell over it. But the morning of glory dawns\emdash The Sun of Righteousness shines; and in His "unsetting beams" the leaves expand again, in unfading and undying glory. "With ME!" Christ in our nature, our Friend, our Brother! We are happy on earth in the presence of those who have befriended us, and given us proofs of kindness and affection. Who has ever been friend or brother to us like Jesus? ETERNITY is a solemn word. Death ushers into an untraveled country. The soul mounts in its arrowy flight into a region which "eye has not seen, nor ear heard." But Christ is there; and that assurance inverts it with a home-like aspect. I need not fear the fords of Jordan, when there is a well-known voice heard on the farther shores\emdash "Fear not! It is I! Be not afraid!" (Matt. 14:27.)\par \par Let me look forward, then, with bounding heart, to the hour of death, as the hour of my entrance on endless bliss, the birthday of eternity. Oh, if there was "joy in heaven among the angels of God" at the hour of conversion, what will it be at the hour of glorification! If God the Father even on earth has joy in seeing His returning prodigal; what will it be when He welcomes him to his everlasting home! "He will rejoice over him with joy; He will rest in His love; He will rejoice over him with singing," (Zeph. 3:17.) The Redeemer utters His intercessory prayer over the death-bed on earth, "Father, I will that this one whom you have given me be with me where I am, to behold my glory." The prayer is heard\emdash the angels are sent down\emdash and, swift as the volleyed lightning leaps from the cloud, THAT HOUR, and forever, he is "with Jesus in paradise!"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } o oceq24 From Glory to Glory{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times+a23 Immediate Entrance{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 IMMEDIATE ENTRANCE.\par \par "It seemed not as a dream, and yet I stood beside heaven's gate. Its mighty hinges were loosed New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 FROM GLORY TO GLORY.\par \par "When this aching heart shall rest,\par All its busy pulses o'er,\par From her mortal robes undrest,\par Shall my spirit upward soar;\par Then shall ever-growing joy\par All my thoughts and powers employ.\par \par "Jesus reigns\emdash the life, the sun,\par Of that wondrous world above;\par All the clouds and storms are gone\emdash\par All is light, and all is love.\par All the shadows melt away\par In the blaze of glorious day."\emdash Lange.\par \par "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day."\emdash Prov. 4:18.\par \par As the Believer's path on earth is, or ought to be, a progressive one, in knowledge, love, happiness, and joy; so, in a loftier and more ennobling sense, will it be in a future world. The sun of his bliss will ever be climbing higher and higher the skies, but yet never attaining its full meridian. Heaven, indeed, as we have seen in a former meditation, would be lacking in one chief element of happiness were advancement unknown. The glorified spirit, constituted as our feelings at present are, would not be satisfied with a stationary bliss. "Perfect security from all danger of a change for the worse, is a highly gratifying idea; but the expectation of a change for the better, is an essential ingredient in all our present notions of happiness," (Whately.) The Redeemed in heaven\emdash "vessels of glory" "fitted for the Master's use"\emdash while they will be always filled, yet, if it seem not a paradox, they will be always filling\emdash ever increasing in the divine knowledge and likeness, progressing along the line of infinite blessedness flowing from God's presence and smile.\par \par It is the privilege of the believer, even in this world, to be ever aspiring after a more intimate acquaintance with the Divine character, works, and ways. David, notwithstanding all that he had seen of Jehovah, says, "My soul THIRSTS FOR GOD," (Ps. 42:2.) Paul, notwithstanding his exalted attainments, prays, "That I MAY KNOW HIM," (Phil. 3:10.) The whole Christian dispensation, from the earliest times until now, has been progressive in its character. Those living anterior to the flood had but dim perceptions of the glorious things which our eyes have seen, and our ears have heard. Redemption was more fully unfolded to the patriarchs\emdash more fully still to the prophets\emdash and "in these last days," in which He has "spoken unto us by His Son," more fully than all. This gradual development will still characterize "the ages to come"\emdash each cycle of these ages evolving some new manifestation of the Divine character and attributes. As the saints advanced on earth from grace to grace; so then they will be ascending from "glory to glory"\emdash each new pause on the steeps of the everlasting hills only unfolding new and more amazing discoveries of God's grace and love.\par \par Nor shall we ever reach that point where our knowledge of the Infinite will be complete\emdash where we shall be able to fold the wing in its upward soaring. An old English writer beautifully compares the believer's knowledge of God in a future world, to the two well-known mathematical lines, which, though approaching nearer and nearer to one another, never meet. So the ransomed spirit, borne upwards nearer and nearer the great Sun of all knowledge, will never reach the confines of that light which is spoken of as "inaccessible, and full of glory." Every new height reached in the infinite progress of the soul, while it will give more insight into the mysteries of God's dealings, will only inspire with greater longings to know more of His ineffable glories.\par \par The song of the redeemed is represented as swelling louder and louder, the more that the mingled wisdom, and faithfulness, and love of the Almighty is unfolded. "The voice of a great multitude" increases to the "noise of many waters;"\emdash deeper still, to "the voice of mighty thunderings," (Rev. 19:6.) Here we are but children-dreamers. Our path lies through misty shadows and murky clouds\emdash our sun, either smiting with its beams, or wading through a stormy sky, or "going down while it is yet day." Here, the believer walks in darkness and can see no light; or when he has light for a time, it is often fitful and transient; like the luminous wake of a vessel on a midnight sea, which gilds, only for a moment, the waves over which it bounds, and then leaves them as dark as ever. But once across the threshold of glory, the "darkness is past, and the true light shines." His, then, is an "unsmiting and unsetting sun." "The sun shall not smite you," says one, (Ps. 121:6.) "Your sun shall no more go down," says another, (Isa. 60:20.) It is called "the inheritance of the saints IN LIGHT," (Col. 1:12.)\par \par Have I begun this path of heavenly love and knowledge now? Am I progressing in it? Do I feel some dawnings of the heavenly light\emdash pledges and foretastes of the full day of glory? Let all God's dealings serve to quicken me in my way. Let every affliction it may please Him to send, be as the moving pillar-cloud of old, beckoning me to move my tent onwards\emdash saying, "Arise and depart, for this is not your rest," (Mic. 2:10.), Let me be often standing now on faith's lofty eminences, looking for "the day of God"\emdash the rising sun which is to set no more in weeping clouds.\par \par Wondrous progression! How will all earth's learning\emdash its boasted acquirements and eagle-eyed philosophy\emdash sink into the lispings of very infancy in comparison with this manhood of knowledge! Heaven will be the true "Excelsior." Its song, "a song of degrees;"\emdash Jesus leading His people from height to height of glory, and saying, as He said to Nathanael, "You shall see GREATER things than these!" (John 1:50.)\par \par And\emdash most elevating thought of all!\emdash I shall be advancing gradually in resemblance to my Divine Lord and Master! And yet the further I advance, with more fervent lip and devout ardor shall I sing\emdash\par "Nearer, my God, to Thee!\par Nearer to Thee!\par Still all my song shall be,\par Nearer, my God, to Thee!\par Nearer to Thee!"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } par \par "The Prince is ever near them;\par The light is so serene;\par The pastures of the blessed\par Are decked in glorious sheen.\par \par "And they, beneath their Leader,\par Who conquered in the fight,\par Forever, and forever,\par Are clad in robes of light."\emdash Bernard\par \par "Those who are wise will shine as bright as the sky, and those who turn many to righteousness will shine like stars forever and ever."\emdash Dan. 12:3.\par \par Here is another Grape from the Eschol clusters\emdash another glimpse of coming glory. Though suggestive of truths on which we have already dwelt, these may well bear repetition, presenting us, under a different aspect, with fresh motives and encouragements for pursuing with ardor our heavenly way.\par \par We are here reminded that there will be different gradations of bliss in a coming Heaven. The "wise" are to have one reward; "those who turn many to righteousness" will have a higher and greater.\par \par This system of gradation obtains throughout all the other diverse works of the Creator, and it may in this respect be taken as a shadow of heavenly things. In the material world, we ascend from the grain of dust and invisible atom, by giant strides, to satellites, planets, suns. In our own globe, we have the pleasing diversity and undulation of surface, from the little mound on the bosom of the plain, to the stupendous Alp and Andes. In the vegetable kingdom, we have a graduating scale, from the tiny moss and lichen and blade of grass, through the ascending series of plants and shrubs to the monarch oak and cedar. In the animal kingdom, we ascend from the animalcule and mollusc to the lordly lion. A still higher step brings us to the region of human intellect and intelligence; while this, again, in its diversities of ranks, affords fresh evidence of the law of which we speak.\par \par It will be the same in glory. There will be varying eminences in the Heavenly landscape\emdash diversified grades in the Heavenly family. It will have its "thrones and dominions," its "principalities and powers"\emdash the "first" and the "least in the kingdom."\par \par God, in a striking passage in the prophecies of Isaiah, represents "the fir, the pine, and the cypress together," as "beautifying the place of His sanctuary," (Isa. 60:13.) It is a picture of the heavenly courts\emdash the celestial gardens. An assemblage of diverse trees, each perfect in their kind, from the lowly cypress to the stately pine. But they are "together"\emdash in the same place\emdash a glorious group\emdash each branch and each leaf combining to "beautify" the holy place\emdash glorifying the "house of His glory!" (Isa. 60:7.)\par \par The verse further tells us, that all in Heaven will be happy.\par The "wise"\emdash that is, they who have sought on earth the true "wisdom which comes from above"\emdash they who have reposed with undivided and unwavering trust in Christ, the "Wisdom of God;"\emdash who have been diligent in the cultivation of personal piety\emdash they shall shine "as the brightness of the skies." They may have been little known on earth; their graces may have shone dimly and in obscurity; their faith may have even been comparatively weak, and their love languid and fitful; yet, being "the children of the kingdom," they will be invested with a happiness beyond the power of heart to conceive, or tongue to tell.\par \par  Let each ask, "Am I among the number of these 'wise'?" Let me see to it that mine is not the mere lamp of profession, destitute of the oil of grace, leaving me at last among the foolish "dreamers" and loiterers upon whom "the door is shut!" Let me make religion a matter of earnest, downright, personal concernment. Let me prove in my happy experience even now, that wisdom's ways are "ways of pleasantness," and wisdom's paths "paths of peace." So that at last, in the day when He "makes up His jewels," I may be "a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of my God!" (Isa. 62:3.)\par \par This verse further reminds us, that there will be pre-eminent rewards and blessedness in store for those who have been energetic in the cause and service of God on earth.\par \par I must seek to be "wise" first\emdash to have my own soul deeply imbued with Divine things\emdash to have a personal and saving interest in the great salvation. But if I be aspiring after Heaven's loftiest recompense, I must "add" to my faith "fortitude," and the other exalted graces of the Christian character, (2 Pet. 1:5.) The privilege of shining as the fixed stars "forever and ever," is reserved for "those who turn many unto righteousness."\par \par There is a Christianity\emdash a true and sincere life of faith\emdash which, though we cannot call it selfish, is more negative, and less influential and expansive, than it ought to be. Like the quiet lake into which a stone has fallen, the center of the heart has been touched by a sanctified power; but we see at best only dim indications of the widening circles of beneficence and charity, self-denying love and holy deed. The nobler phase which true religion assumes, is that which manifests a diffusive influence: when the believer becomes an "epistle of Christ, known and read of all men;"\emdash a living tree, not only deeply rooted in faith and love, but waving with the fruits of holy living and holy acting\emdash love towards God expanding into a sanctified love towards all mankind. Following the footsteps of the Great Exemplar, he delights in doing good, and in attracting sinners to that glorious righteousness which is "unto all, and upon all those who believe," (Rom. 3:22.)\par \par While the faithful ambassador of Christ, the honored and self-denying missionary, are those who are pre-eminently referred to in this ennobling promise, it dare not be limited or restricted to these. Those in humbler and less prominent spheres in the Church and the world, have an equal warrant to appropriate it. It is a bold and beautiful figure, intended to express the recompense in store for earnest individual effort\emdash whether by station, money, influence, or character\emdash in the cause of God. The pious parent, the faithful teacher, the district visitor, the devout philanthropist, the generous giver for the sake of Christ; and, more than all, those who exhibit the hallowed power of a devout, unselfish, Christ-like demeanor, the every-day and perpetual lesson of a holy walk and a holy life; these are hereafter to shine as the brightest constellations in the celestial skies. There are many stars invisible to us, which are exerting an important influence among the heavenly bodies. So there are many lowly believers whose influence now is unknown\emdash invisible\emdash secret\emdash who are yet telling upon others, often most powerfully, when least conscious of it themselves. The calm eloquence of a Christian's life and a Christian's death has impressed and convinced, when the most labored pulpit oratory has been of no avail. Remember the Bible picture of the judgment-day. "What! I saw You hungry, or naked, or thirsty!\emdash I, who occupied no prominent part in Your Church on earth!\emdash I, a lowly believer who lived and died in obscurity!" It is enough! "You did it to the least of these my brethren," and in doing so, "you did it unto ME!" (Matt. 25:40.)\par \par Be it mine to aspire after higher and higher manifestations of Christian excellence. Let me take the lofty motto of the apostle: "Not as though I had already attained;"\emdash "always abounding in the work of the Lord," (Phil. 3:12; 1 Cor. 15:58.) The more of practical holiness now, the more of transcendent blessedness hereafter. The original one pound deposit may, by diligent trading, gain me ten pounds, (Luke 19:16.) As "the sleep of the laboring man" is said to be "sweet," so, sweeter will be the rest of glory to those who have toiled bravely, and worked earnestly. Not one trifling seed of all I sow can be lost. It will spring up at last, and yield an hundredfold of recompense, to the praise, and honor, and glory of God.\par \par Is there nothing I can do in the way of turning some of my fellow-sinners to righteousness? What a transcendent honor to hear through eternity from the lips of some glorified saint, "You were the means of leading me first to think of my soul! You were the first to unfold to me the beauty and glory of the Savior's character, and His infinite adaptation to all the needs and necessities of my tried and suffering and tempted nature!" How blessed the thought, that as "jewels" set in Immanuel's crown, we shall, (like the gems of earth when placed in the same diadem) enhance by mutual reflection each other's brightness\emdash all redounding to the glory of Jesus, at whose feet each gem and each crown will be cast.\par \par Reader! let not the poor engrossments of earth eclipse the brightness of this glorious heritage. Seek to be able to say, with one who had heaven ever in his eye, "We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are NOT seen!" (2 Cor. 4:18.) He seems to say, So glorious and out-dazzling are the prospects of coming glory, that they are like the sun extinguishing the candle. The things of earth are not worth looking at\emdash they pale into nothing, when brought side by side with the grandeur of the future.\par \par Hear your Lord's voice saying, "Occupy until I come," (Luke 19:13.) Make the most of fleeting opportunities. The night of earth is "far spent," the day of eternity is close "at hand." Do not forget, it is now or never. In most other earthly things, there are new chances\emdash new experiments; in familiar language, "we can try again." But, once across yonder boundary of time, and an irrevocable seal is stamped on the transactions of the past. The star takes its immutable place in the spiritual skies: "Where the tree falls there it shall be."\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } &&]m26 The Victor's Song{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\fǁaU25 The Heavenly Skies{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE HEAVENLY SKIES.\par \par "They stand, those walls of Zion,\par All jubilant with song;\par And bright with many an angel,\par And many a martyr throng.\0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE VICTOR'S SONG.\par \par "Who are these in bright array,\par This innumerable throng\par Round the altar night and day,\par Tuning their triumphant song?\par \par "These through fiery trials trod,\par These from great affliction came;\par Now, before the throne of God,\par Sealed with His eternal name.\par \par "Clad in clothing pure and white,\par Victor-palms in every hand,\par Through their great Redeemer's might\par More than conquerors they stand.\par \par "Hushed all sadness and all sighs,\par Perfect love dispels their fears,\par And forever from their eyes\par God has wiped away their tears."\par \par Then I looked again, and I heard the singing of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and the living beings and the elders. And they sang in a mighty chorus: "The Lamb is worthy\emdash the Lamb who was slain. He is worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing." Rev. 5:11-12\par \par Here is the Song of Heaven! It is sung by a mighty chorus\emdash concentric ranks of redeemed and unredeemed: the angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim. The prophet of Patmos gets only a distant glimpse of the vast multitude\emdash he sees a few twinkling lights, as it were, in the suburbs of the eternal city. But the voice borne to his ear is "as the noise of many waters!"\par \par It is one section of that myriad throng on which the eye is most intently fixed\emdash "THE ELDERS;"\emdash that is, the ransomed from the earth.\par \par How diverse and varied their antecedent histories! Some are there, who had died in infancy. Some, who on earth had grown gray in the service of their heavenly Master. Some, who had been arrayed in worldly greatness, but who were yet "clothed with humility"\emdash into whose lap had been poured the full cup of prosperity, but whose lives had been consecrated as a perpetual thank-offering of praise to the Giver. Others again, whose only earthly heritage was the beggar's hovel\emdash whose path had been strewn with thorns, and their eyes dimmed with tears\emdash yet who had borne all with unmurmuring submission. Some, who were champions of the faith\emdash their names in all the churches. Others, "the Lord's hidden ones"\emdash their deeds of faith, and love, and charity, unknown to all save to Him who sees in secret.\par \par (1.) This vision speaks of the UNITY pervading the vast multitude.\par All unite in one song, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!" No one worshiper will look with disdainful eye on another. The angels great in might\emdash the cherubim burning with devotion\emdash the seraphim soaring in intellectual power\emdash will be bound to the lowliest saint in heaven by the one cementing principle of love! These "redeemed from the earth" may have lived in diverse periods of the world, different epochs of the Church\emdash they may have dwelt in different climates\emdash they may have lisped the name of Jesus in different tongues, they may have belonged to varied denominations\emdash wearing on earth different attire, and though looking to one Shepherd, may have clung to separate sheepfolds. Now, they are drawn into holy unity by the sweet attraction of the same cross. Having no longer any separate interests, each member of the glorified throng is actively employed in promoting the interests and happiness of his fellows. "Whether there be tongues, they shall cease," (1 Cor. 13:8.) Language is now on earth, a greater barrier between church and church, than are mountains and rivers, continents and oceans; but these different dialects of earth shall then be merged into the one sublime language of eternity.\par \par Well may the gifted author of the "Saint's Rest" say, "What a blessed society will the family of heaven be, and those peaceful inhabitants of the new Jerusalem, where there is no division, nor differing judgments, nor disaffection, nor coldness; no deceitful friendship\emdash no, not one unkind expression, nor an angry look or thought; but all are one in Christ, who is one with the Father, and all live in the love of Him who is love itself."\par \par (2.) The sublime vision of John seems further to indicate, that the Church triumphant will then be COMPLETE. Not one heir of glory will be missing\emdash not one stone of the stupendous temple missing\emdash not one sheaf of the glorious harvest lost. The number is "ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands!"\par \par That was an hour of deep interest in the past, when the spirit of Abel entered Heaven, and stooped solitary and alone before the throne of God. He sung his song alone; he was the sole representative of the redeemed Church\emdash the first sheaf in the future teeming harvest of ransomed immortals! But now the Great Husbandman gathers the wheat into His garners, and, lo! it is "a multitude which no man can number!" (Rev. 7:9.) How gladdening to think that vast convocation is every day, every year increasing. When John was on earth it was a feeble band. He said, "We are of God and the whole world lies in wickedness!" (1 John 5:19.) The Church then was like a spark in chaos\emdash a tiny ark tossed on a great flood of evil; but before long, the number of His elect will be "as the sand on the sea-shore." "The children of God" now "scattered abroad" will be brought in\emdash "the whole building, fitly framed together," will stand complete and glorious\emdash a "holy temple in the Lord," (Eph. 2:21.)\par \par But (3.) the "top-stone" will be brought forth "with shoutings," and the cry will be "Grace, grace unto it," (Zech. 4:7.) The song of this great multitude is an ascription of praise to a Redeeming God\emdash "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!"\par \par Yes! this will be the sweet bond of union\emdash "all one in Christ Jesus." The hallelujah chorus of eternity will be the glorifying of His adorable Person and Name! How painful on earth it is to a generous heart, to see a kind and devoted friend unjustly calumniated and scorned. The believer is in this world constantly compelled to see his adorable Redeemer despised, rejected, slighted, blasphemed. Then, he will behold Him, honored, lauded, "crowned Lord of all!" Jesus glorified!\emdash we shall be "eye-witnesses of His majesty." If, even here, we delight to see honor conferred on those we love\emdash how shall we exult in joining our feeble ascriptions with those of the great multitude, in celebrating the glory of Him whose love will there shine forth in all its peerless and transcendent magnitude!\par \par "The Lamb"\emdash "the Lamb who was slain." It seems, at first, a strange name and a strange theme, in a place where suffering is unknown and where pain never enters! But it significantly tells, that the work of Christ is to be the theme of eternity; that it is the heights of Redeeming Love the saints are to be engaged in scaling\emdash the depths of grace they are to be engaged in fathoming. They will ever have the wondrous truth recalled, "But for that dying, bleeding Lamb, we must have been eternally lost\emdash but for that wondrous grace of His, ours must now, and forever, have been a portion in the restless surges of that fiery burning lake!" "Doubtless," says Baxter, "this will be our everlasting admiration, that so rich a crown should fit the head of so vile a sinner. Let DESERVED be written on the door of Hell; but on the door of Heaven and life, the FREE GIFT."\par \par Reader! prepare for this lofty society\emdash the presence of angels\emdash the presence of Jesus. Oh surpassing honor! the prospect of being linked through everlasting ages with every glorious Being in the universe\emdash a brotherhood with seraphim, cherubim, saints, martyrs\emdash yes, union and communion with God Himself!\par \par If there be "joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repents;" what will be that lofty burst of jubilee resounding from a ransomed Church, when all its members shall be gathered in; and when the crowns of "ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands," shall be cast at the feet of "Him who sits upon the throne" and "the Lamb, forever and ever!"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } t0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE VICTOR'S DRESS.\par \par "Sweetest strains from soft harps stealing;\par Trumpets, notes of triumph pealing;\par Radiant wings and white stoles gleaming,\par Up the steps of glory streaming;\par Where the heavenly bells are ringing,\par Holy, holy, holy! singing\par To the mighty Trinity!\par Holy, holy, holy! crying;\par For all earthly care and sighing\par In that city cease to be."\par \emdash Thomas A Kempis, 1380.\par \par "Clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." \emdash Rev. 7:9.\par \par What a transition! from earth to heaven\emdash from the mortal to the immortal\emdash from partial sanctification to complete and everlasting purity. The beggar "lifted from the ash-heap," "set among princes," and caused to inherit "a throne of glory!" (1 Sam. 2:8.)\par \par "Clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." It is a figurative representation of glorified saints, as "priests and kings unto God." The "white robe" is the priestly emblem\emdash the "palm" is the kingly emblem. They are to have censers as well as crowns. They are to be employed as consecrated Levites in the Heavenly Temple, as well as to reign invested with regal dignity. As in all the Bible pictures of Heaven, so, here, there is a beautiful union of active service with royal honor. "His servants shall SERVE him."\emdash "They shall reign forever and ever," (Rev. 22:3, 5.)\par \par The expression, "standing before the throne," denotes boldness, confidence, acceptance. They are "accepted in the Beloved." They could have no other boldness but in Jesus. Their robes derive all their whiteness, their palms all their greenness, from Him, before whom every palm is waved, and at whose feet every crown is cast. They sang by anticipation in their militant state, and they may love to repeat it still as "a song of remembrance"\emdash\par \par "Bold shall I stand at that great day;\par For who aught to my charge shall lay?\par While by Your blood absolved I am,\par From sin's tremendous guilt and shame!"\par \par Have I this boldness and confidence now? Am I now clothed in the imputed righteousness of Immanuel? And do I look forward to the time when I shall stand arrayed also in the stainless robe of personal holiness\emdash that "clothing clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints?" (Rev. 19:8.) Do I love to think of Heaven as a place of living employment; where, as a member of the glorified priesthood, I shall minister at God's altar, and be filled with zeal for His honor and glory? Jesus comes down now to earth to "sup" with me, (Rev. 3.) Then I shall sit down at His everlasting banquet, and hold uninterrupted fellowship with Him. "THEY shall walk with ME in white, for they are worthy," (Rev. 3:4.)\par \par But I shall be a KING too. I shall stand with a palm-branch in my hand! The weapons of earthly toil and warfare will then be laid aside; the emblems of triumph and victory take their place. The Roman conqueror ascending to the Capitol of old, with the laurel on his brow, and the palm-branch waving above his head, was a feeble type of the sinner saved by grace, passing through the triumphal arch of glory, to receive "the crown of life" which his Lord has promised! "The kings of the earth," we read, "bring their glory and honor unto it," (Rev. 21:24)\emdash that is to say, all the pomp and splendor of earthly sovereignty is taken to typify and image forth the transcendent greatness of Heaven.\par \par We may well pause and wonder at these royal honors in reserve for us! "KINGS unto God!" All the splendors of sovereignty, without its harassments and burdens! No thorn in the crown; no "suspended sword" from the "fretted ceiling," dimming the sparkling jewels with its shadow; and painfully reminding that the crown is "corruptible," often "defiled," always fading!\par \par In Rev.4:4 we read, that "round about the thrones were twenty-four seats," (or, as that might be better and more literally rendered, "twenty-four thrones.") Every head is to be a crowned one. "I appoint unto you" by covenant, says Christ, "a KINGDOM, even as my Father has appointed unto me," (Luke 22:29.)\par \par While believers are designated "a priesthood," they are a "royal priesthood"\emdash royally born\emdash royally fed\emdash royally attended\emdash royally crowned! Some are to have regal authority "over five," some "over ten cities," according to the fidelity with which they have discharged their trusts during the period of earthly probation.\par \par Am I preparing for these royal honors? Having "palms in their hands" indicates that, as victors and victorious, these sainted conquerors were once engaged in the strife of battle. Am I fighting now? Do I feel the world\emdash my own heart\emdash to be a battle-field, and that there is no discharge in that spiritual warfare until I reach the gates of glory? Let me not dream of the crown, unless I am conscious of striving for it. It is alone promised "to him who overcomes," (Rev. 3:21.) It has been quaintly said by a writer on this verse, that "a station on the feet in front of the throne in heaven, is the effect of being often on the knees before the throne on earth." Oh for faith, and grace, and spiritual fortitude here, to "fight the good fight of faith, and to lay hold on eternal life!" (1 Tim. 6:12.) How will the everlasting respite from pain and sorrow, corruption and sin, be all the more enjoyed, by reason of the struggles and conflicts which have preceded it!\par \par Believer, think of this! Once within yonder peaceful gates, and the blood and dust of the earthly arena is washed away forever. The long "white robe" speaks beautifully of this promised rest. The toil of the militant state is over. There may then be used the flowing vesture. There will be no need of fleeing, and of girding up the dress, when there is none to pursue. When we reach the battlements of glory, we shall be able to say, "O enemy! destructions are now come to a PERPETUAL end," (Ps. 9:6.)\par \par Glorious time!\emdash when we shall stand before the throne, faultless monuments of God's wondrous grace. How blessed if, at a dying hour, we can exclaim, in the prospect of this royal priesthood, this white robe, and evergreen palm, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day!" (2 Tim. 4:8.) "Be of good cheer, Christian, the time is near when God and you shall be near, and as near as you can well desire. You shall ever stand before Him; around His throne\emdash in the room with Him\emdash in His presence-chamber! Would you yet be nearer? You shall be His child, and He your Father. Yes, you shall be an heir of His kingdom!\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } **a]27 The Victor's Dress{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharseother life, the glorious day\par Shall open over me from the empyreal height,\par With warmth, and certainty, and boundless light."\par \par "There shall be NO NIGHT there."\emdash Rev. 22:5.\par \par Here is another gleaning from the clusters of Canaan\emdash another bright lamp hung out of our Father's distant dwelling! Amid the falling shadows of earth, let us come and anticipate the noontide glories of the better world, and enumerate a few respects in which it may be said\emdash "There shall be no night there!"\par \par We found, in our first Meditation, Heaven spoken of under the emblem of Rest. The present figure is suggestive of kindred reflections; which, though in some respects an echo of the former, we may, for the sake of the beautiful and expressive symbol itself, be permitted for a little to pursue.\par \par There shall be no night of weakness or weariness there.\par Here on earth, we are incapable of serving God without intervals of repose. The weary, jaded framework requires a periodic cessation from activity. Overly encumber either the body or mental powers, and we are sure to suffer for it. Here, how often does night suggest the memory of pain and sickness\emdash the fevered pulse\emdash the throbbing brow\emdash the sickly candle burning to its socket\emdash the terrible moments of anxiety, when the spirit of some loved one was struggling on the confines of eternity.\par \par Or, if the body be comparatively exempt from prostration or suffering, how often has the believer to complain of a weak and languishing frame of soul\emdash the chill dews of night-fall creeping over his best affections\emdash no, often deprived of the sensible tokens of God's presence and favor, groping in darkness and seeing no light!\par \par But, "there is no night THERE!"\emdash no languor to steal over the body\emdash no lassitude to chain down and hamper the eagle-soarings of the spirit; no physical weariness or debility to cause a cessation in the eternal song\emdash no remnants of corruption to produce one solitary moment or experience of estrangement from the great Source of all light, and love, and happiness! The tide of love ever full\emdash never ebbing\emdash the sun of our bliss ever climbing higher and higher the meridian, and never shaded by so much as a passing cloud! "Oh! what a moment," says a now sainted spirit, "will that be, when the lamp of faith will be suddenly extinguished\emdash not amid the darkness of eternal night\emdash but amid the splendors of everlasting day!"\par \par There shall be no night of ignorance there.\par We are encompassed here on every side with enigmas\emdash the doctrines of Scripture (not a few of them) irreconcilable with the dogmas of proud reason. The ways of God!\emdash they are often a "great deep"\emdash misapprehended\emdash misinterpreted! Here, we are in the twilight of our being\emdash Scripture speaks of it as "neither light nor dark." What, if revealed in broad day, would be all symmetrical in form, assumes dim and distorted and shadowy shapes.\par \par Even in the acquisition of knowledge, the mind climbs its tedious way by slow and laborious processes. The ore is dug by dint of incessant toil; and often when the coveted load is just reached, the jaded explorer has to resign his task! But there, the "glass darkly" will give way to the "face to face." All will be made luminous. "In your light," O God, "we shall see light." Knowledge, which is here the result of assiduous labor, will there be gained by intuition. To see will be to understand.\par \par And what shall be said of what we call "mysterious PROVIDENCES?" Eternity will unravel every mazy labyrinth in them. It will be one of Heaven's loftiest occupations, studying the volumes of the past\emdash discovering them to be volumes of faithfulness\emdash every page, which on earth seemed blurred, will then stand forth in illuminated characters, endorsed with, "God is Love!" The cloudiest sky will be seen to have had its rainbow, some token of covenant mercy. The higher we climb the mountains of glory, the wider spread at our feet will be the discoveries of Jehovah's wisdom. There will be no more room for misgivings. The "why" and the "wherefore" of every earthly dealing will be revealed. "The channels of the deep waters will be all made plain, through which the Almighty held His darksome way," (M'Ewen.)\par \par There shall be no night of sorrow there.\par A melancholy minor-note runs its under-tone through all our present joys. Even when the cup is full, there is the aching thought, "This cannot always last." Even when the gourd is most flourishing, there is often the too truthful foreboding, that the worm may come\emdash in a moment, and it is DOWN!\par \par Night!\emdash poetry has ever spoken of it as the significant type and emblem of Death. How impressively it recalls that chamber of mysterious silence, where the footfall echoed no sound but its own, and the living lip of cherished friendship was sealed forever! With how many the mind is like a hall draped in sackcloth\emdash the long winding passages of memory hung with portraits of those "who are not"\emdash the memorials of buried love!\par \par But there, "sorrow and sighing will forever flee away," (Isa. 35:10.) Joy will there be undiluted. The angel of death no longer crosses that threshold. Every shaft is expended. The last night of earth will be the last night of weeping. Not one shadow will flit across that bright sky\emdash not one scalding tear will dim the eyes of the crowned and glorified. As the verse in Psalm 30 may be beautifully and literally rendered, "Sorrow" (like a wayfaring man, a sojourner) "lodges for a night," (the night of earth) "BUT, joy comes in the morning!" Happy time! when, as I reach the gates of glory, the last burden of sorrow will roll from my back, and I shall pursue my heavenly way rejoicing!\par \par There shall be no night of sin there.\par It is sin that bound its death-bands over the world's fevered brow. "What is soul-rest," says Richard Baxter, "but our freedom from sin?" Give me all that the world can bestow, so long as this nature of mine remains at the best only partially sanctified\emdash continuing to drag about with it a body of SIN, I cannot be perfectly happy. What a blessed world would the present be, were sin expunged from it! What a joyful world that SHALL be, where we know that sin is to be forever expelled\emdash the trail of the serpent never polluting its blessed soil! Here, Satan approached with his foul assaults even the holy Son of God. "Cast yourself down," was his blasphemous appeal, as he took him to the Temple summit, (Matt. 4:6.) But the Prince of this world will in vain plant his footsteps on the pinnacle of the New Jerusalem Temple\emdash into it nothing that is unholy shall ever enter. "The spirits of the just" will then be "made perfect!" Here, there is sin in the best and holiest. There are decayed branches in the stateliest Lebanon cedars\emdash flaws in the purest cisterns\emdash ripples of corruption in the clearest fountains; but there, all will be presented "without fault" before the throne\emdash not a trace or lineament of sin adhering\emdash nothing to be feared\emdash no dark contingencies\emdash no real or imagined evils.\par \par Night here on earth, is a shadowy-time\emdash full of spectral images, types of uncertainty, mutability, change. But looking forward to Heaven, we have "the hope of eternal life, who God that cannot lie, promised before the world began," (Tit. 1:2). Oh! thrice blessed moment, when the stormy night-watch will be over\emdash when we shall feel the shallows underneath us\emdash see the haven in sight\emdash the morning light breaking over the towers of the Heavenly city\emdash angels pointing to them as they crowd the shore, and exclaiming, in contrast with what we have left behind us\emdash "THERE SHALL BE NO NIGHT THERE!"\par \par "I journey forth rejoicing,\par From this dark vale of tears,\par To heavenly joy and freedom,\par From earthly bonds and fears.\par When Christ, our Lord, shall gather\par All His redeemed again,\par His kingdom to inherit\emdash\par GOOD-NIGHT, until then!\par \par "I go to see His glory\par Whom we have loved below\emdash\par I go\emdash the blessed angels\emdash\par The holy saints\emdash to know.\par Our lovely one departed,\par I go to find again,\par And wait for you to join us\emdash\par GOOD-NIGHT, until then!\par \par "I hear the Savior calling\emdash\par The joyful hour has come,\par The angel guards are ready\par To guide me to our home;\par Where Christ, our Lord, shall gather\par All His redeemed again,\par His kingdom to inherit\emdash\par GOOD-NIGHT, until then!"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } IIgey28 The Nightless World{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 THE NIGHTLESS WORLD.\par \par "And I with faltering footsteps journey on,\par Watching the stars that roll the hours away,\par Until the faint light that guides me now is gone,\par And, like annight air,\par No dread of summer's bright and fervid ray!\par \par "No hidden grief,\par No wild and cheerless vision of despair,\par No vain petition for a swift relief,\par No tearful eye, no broken hearts, are there!\par \par "Care has no home\par Within that realm of ceaseless praise and song;\par Its toiling billows break and melt in foam,\par Far from the mansions of the spirit-throng!"\par \par "Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to FOUNTAINS OF LIVING WATER. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."\emdash Rev. 7:16, 17.\par \par This is a glorious note of celestial music, one of the sweetest chimes of the upper sanctuary. All that poetry ever wrote, or touching pathos conceived, falls immeasurably short of the grandeur of this passage. No wonder that the Bible-leaf of a great poet, who studied to better purpose the volume of nature than the volume of grace, should, nevertheless, be moist with tears here.\par \par The verse contains another of the many negative descriptions of Heaven; for the Bible most frequently describes Heaven, not by what it is, but by what it is not. The glorified band of once sin-stricken and woe-worn pilgrims, have now reached the pure river of the water of life. They are like Israel of old when seated under the walls of Jericho, to keep their first Passover in Canaan. The manna had ceased\emdash they were eating the new corn of the land\emdash the hunger, the thirst, the sun-blight of the desert were ended\emdash Jordan was crossed. Their weary feet were treading the Land of Promise, for which they had toiled and suffered during forty protracted years of wilderness-privation. But the memory of these was all that now remained. Their Marahs and Achors\emdash their scorching marches\emdash the burning sands by day\emdash the chilly damps of night\emdash their conflict with the disciplined warriors of Amalek\emdash the recollection of all this only served to enhance the prospect of peaceful repose in the Covenanted Heritage: "the land of brooks and fountains of waters," a land "flowing with milk and honey," (Josh. 5:6.)\par \par This verse unfolds the same element of joy in the future blessedness of the true Israel of God, which we referred to in speaking of Heaven under a former emblem\emdash the joy of contrast. Here, in this sinning, sorrowing, weeping world, the believer hungers, thirsts, weeps, suffers. There, in yonder tearless world, "he shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more."\par \par The unfallen angels know nothing of these experiences; they never sinned, and therefore they have never known what it is to suffer. "Hunger," "thirst," are words unknown to them! But to the glorified pilgrim, once sin-burdened and sorrow-burdened\emdash exposed to the fiery sun and the desert blast\emdash how will the joy of heavenly rest be increased by the remembrance of the toil and conflict which preceded it?\par \par Here, and There, how startling the COMPARISON!\par \par Here, the burning rays of trial often wither up his best joys. Affliction, like the desolating windstorm, sweeps down in a moment his most cherished props and fondest shelters. There, no withering blast can burst upon him\emdash no "fiery trial can try him;"\emdash the furnace-heat of the desert can no longer be felt or feared!\par \par Here, he "hungers," panting after the attainment of earthly objects, which, even when attained, never satisfy the longings of his immortal spirit. Here, he is often like the fevered patient, turning from side to side on his anguished couch, imagining every change of posture will be easier. There, he shall be eternally and everlastingly satisfied. No longer shall there be so much as one longing unanswered, or one aching void unfilled.\par \par Here, he "thirsts"\emdash "he seeks water and there is none." The world's sources of refreshment are like the summer's brook, dry when most needed. Read the inscription on that earthly cistern\emdash "It is leaky;" it "can hold no water!" (Jer. 2:13.) But there the vessel is ever full, ever flowing, overflowing\emdash "They shall drink of the river of your pleasures"\emdash "With you," O God, "is the fountain of life," (Ps. 36:9.)\par \par "God," it is here said, "shall wipe away all tears from our eyes." As the word "Eye," to the Jew, was synonymous with "Fountain," it would seem to denote that the gracious hand of a gracious God will dry up the very fountain of weeping; so that not so much as one tear-drop will again bedim or bedew the face! Often, here, as weary wandering birds, with drooping wing and wailing cry, we roam over earth's ocean of change. There, we shall fold our wings forever\emdash nestling in safety within the true ark of God. Here, it is "outside the camp, bearing His reproach." There, it is within the gates, sharing His glory!\par \par Oh, what a comfort to traverse in thought that glorious white-robed company, and to think, in the midst of my own vileness, "They were once as vile as I!" Every robe there, was stained with sin. "Who are these?" One was haughty, a persecutor, injurious. Another was a thief, translated from a felon's cross to a believer's crown. Another is a saint who had escaped the contaminating influences of "Caesar's household," and was made by grace a monument of mercy. Another was once a weeping Magdalene. But all had "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." If the angels who have never sinned, find their chief happiness in God's service, what a deepened intensity of joy will there be in the happiness of sainted believers! The angels know God only as their Creator and Benefactor; they know Him as their Redeeming God in Jesus. The one can sing, "Worthy is the Lamb!" the others alone can add, "He was slain for us!"\par \par Do any mourners read this page? Be comforted. Listen once more to the sublime dialogue, "Who are these?" "These are they who have come out of great tribulation!" There is an identity of experience between you and every member of that glorified multitude. They have all graduated in a school of trial. You may now be sowing in tears, but, like them, you will soon "reap in joy." And, better than all\emdash "the Lamb" shall "feed you and lead you," and with His own gentle hand wipe away every lingering tear-drop! If it was delightful even on earth to repose in our every anxiety on Him\emdash what will it be to rest in the arms of His love, when anxiety, sorrow, weakness, weariness, are known no more! He has loved us in the past\emdash There, we are told He is to love us and tend us forever and ever. On earth we have loved perishable friends too much, but here is One we cannot love too well. In eternity we shall speak of "the great love with which He loved us"\emdash no, with which He lo ves us!\par \par Reader, often anticipate that blessed communion and exalted fellowship, when you shall hear His voice of tenderness stealing down from "the living fountains of waters," by which He is eternally to lead you, saying, "Come up here!" Soon your head will ache no more\emdash your heart break no more\emdash cherished earthly ties will be sundered no more\emdash sin will reign no more. There will be no furrowed features there\emdash no withered gourds\emdash no blighted hopes\emdash no dread of desolating afflictions. The days of your mourning will be ended. And when you see Him and throw yourself at His feet, what will be your confession, as from the sunlit summit you look back on the windings of the lower valley? "He has done all things WELL!"\par \par "More than conquerors at last,\par Here they find their trials o'er;\par They have all their sufferings past,\par Hunger now and thirst no more;\par No consuming heat they feel,\par From the sun's oppressive ray,\par In a milder clime they dwell,\par Region of eternal day!\par \par "They with Him shall ever reign,\par Them the Lamb shall always feed,\par With the tree of life sustain,\par To the living fountains lead:\par He shall all their sorrows chase,\par All their needs and doubts remove,\par Wipe the tears from every face,\par In a world of endless love!"\par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par } IYI29 Living Fountains{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 LIVING FOUNTAINS.\par \par "No sickness there!\par No weary wasting of the frame away,\par No fearful shrinking from the mid |5U30 Forever{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\cf1\lang2058\f0\fs23\par }