Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

have completed, lest anything should injure it; so, as one believer after another is fashioned and finished he is removed from sight, until at length the "head stone shall be brought forth with shoutings, Grace, grace unto it." (Zech. iv. 7.) But we must now close our Bibles. If you did nothing else in life but lay one stone. in this glorious temple, you will not have lived in vain.

No. X.

THE CHRISTIAN AT THE END OF HIS JOURNEY, OR, GLIMPSES OF HOME.

Mary. Never, dear Mamma, did we so long for our Sunday evening reading; it is the most delightful subject, and those beautiful sunset clouds look just like the turrets of heaven.

Lily. I could almost fancy the angels walking on those golden peaks.

Arthur. And we never had the least thought, Papa, how much there was in the Bible about heaven before.

Papa. It was for that very purpose, my children, that we wished you to search out the scattered notices of the happy world to come, given in Scripture. For when men speak of glory, they often seem to me to have only a confused maze of light before their eyes, and not clear bright pictures, and intelligent hopes; and I think the reason is, that they

have never grouped together the hints and glimpses, promises and prospects, which are scattered throughout the pages of the Word of God.

Arthur. Yes, dear Papa; still there was one text which, beautiful though it was, made us fear that, after all, we should never get a true view, and that our thoughts after all might be quite wrong. I mean 1 Cor. ii. 9, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." Mamma. Read on, Arthur.

Arthur." But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." Oh, I did not see that, Mamma.

Mamma. No, my child, the beginning of that sentence is very often quoted without the end. We shall never be able, indeed, on earth fully to conceive all the glories of heaven, nor to measure its boundless fields, nor to fathom its deep, deep joys; but the views we get, and the hopes we form from the Bible under the teaching of God's Holy Spirit, will be quite true as far as they go. Still we are taught by these verses how we need here to sit as little children, and be taught by the Spirit, and "go no further than Scripture does, as it were, lead us by the hand."

Mary. Oh, I see now, Mamma, just as that

beautiful bunch of grapes the spies brought back was not like having all the vineyards of Eshcol to walk and feast in, but still they were real grapes of the land of promise.

Papa. Yes. my child. We must hasten on, for it is a wide, full subject. And first tell me who will enjoy all these glories?

Lily. "Those that love him," papa, that means all God's children, does it not?

Arthur. Oh, we found so many names for the dwellers in heaven, the people of God, the saints of the Most High, the righteous, the children of the kingdom, the children of the resurrection, the spirits of the just made perfect, the sons of God.

Mamma. And every name tells us they will all be pure and holy; do you think any others would be happy there?

Lily. Oh, surely, Mamma, no one could be unhappy in that beautiful place.

Mamma. When a child, Lily, I was taken to a school feast in Germany, but I did not know German; such happy, glad hearts were there, singing and dancing, and I went up to one and another, and said, "Will you play with me?" but they all answered, “I don't understand you," and turned away to their own playmates. I remember sitting down. upon a stone, and crying bitterly for vexation.

And yet all was happy round me in that beau

tiful place.

Lily. You mean, dear Mamma, we must learn the language of heaven?

Mamma. Yes, my child, the language of love, love to Jesus first, and then to all His people. For remember He will be visibly present everywhere in heaven, and it would be torment every moment to an unpardoned sinner to meet His holy eye; nor would that sinner have one thought, one hope, one pleasure, one employment in common with the happy angels and saints in glory.

Papa. Yes, I believe that if such a soul could be admitted to glory, he would beg as the greatest favour to be driven into the outer darkness, away from the light of God's presence, and afar from the love of His people. May my dear children now be "those who love Him," for heaven would be no heaven to others; but let us see how perfectly holy and happy His people then will be, and first as to their bodies.

Arthur. We found from 1 Cor. xv. 40-44, that theirs would be "a celestial body," that it would be raised "in incorruption, in glory, in power, a spiritual body;" and afterwards in the 49th verse, that we should "bear the image of the heavenly."

Mary. And St. Paul says, "The Lord Jesus

« FöregåendeFortsätt »