and if our eyes were opened we should see the whole air peopled with souls rushing to the judgment; and if our ears were unstopped we could hear the trumpet of judgment summoning every moment to the great throne. Time passes; the morning comes like a bride, the evening departs softly and sweetly like a benediction, reminding us to ask, Are we saved or are we not? Let not ours be that awful recollection, "The summer is past, the harvest is ended, and we are not saved." Do we belong to that group? Am I sure of it? The possibility that we may be, should remind us to breathe to Him the prayer that occurs in the ancient Te Deum: "Number us with thy saints in glory everlasting;" incorporate us with this happy family; make us stones of this no mean city. Heaven is not a solitary place, a hermitage, a conventual cell, where each is insulated from the other in loneliness. All the imagery employed denotes that our future state is a social condition: it is a city, it is a country, it is the general assembly of the church of the first-born. Christianity does not destroy our social feelings, it consecrates them. Jesus, who had so many souls to save, had a friend in Lazarus, and intimate friends in Martha and Mary. And those friendships which have been reciprocated below will not be destroyed, but purified and consecrated for ever. The future is the scene of perfect knowledge. If I am in that shining group, shall I be there and not know my next neighbour? Shall I be in heaven and not know him that stands beside me? Will Moses fail to recognize Aaron? will Abraham fail to recognize his beloved Sarah or Isaac? Will the Patriarchs not know their sons? Will heaven be a place where all those thrilling and beautiful recollections have perished for ever in the bosom of the saved? Has the wave of oblivion washed out every trace that was there? No, no; but memory, or rather the heart more than the memory, will not consent to let its imagery fade out till the grand originals appear. The light of truth shall fill every mind, and a sea of love shall overflow with its spring-tide every heart. The glass shall

be broken, the veil shall be rent; heaven is a home; its inhabitants are brothers and sisters. It is a day without a night, a sky without a cloud, and a sun without a setting. "Oh that I had wings," may many say, “like a dove, that I might be there and be at rest!" It will not be the extinction of what we are, but the inspiration, consecration, ennobling of all that we are. God made us at the first; what sin has done will be expunged, but what God made will be restored, reconstructed, and beautified. It is the scene of true unity. There is no united church here below; but there the church is one. I do not expect that in this world there will be perfect unity, as there is no such thing as perfect love, perfect holiness, perfect peace, perfect happiness. There will be differences upon earth; let us differ in good temper and in Christian feeling. But there all these differences are covered with the spring-tide of everlasting light, and love, and truth. That multitude is not composed of natives. In that shining group there is not one native of heaven. They are all colonists, all immigrants; they were on earth what we are now; they came out of tribulation, out of great perils, out of poverty, and sickness, and sorrow. If they got there, why may not I? The road that they beat smooth by their feet is accessible to us; the bosom of the same Father is open to us; the same happy home opens its everlasting gates and countless mansions to all believers.

LECTURE XXX.

ARISE, SHINE, THY LIGHT IS COME.

WE have arrived at a very imperfect apprehension of the effect produced when the prophecy of Isaiah becomes history.

"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. The Lord shall be thine everlasting light."-ISAIAH lx. 1.

THE shechinah will possess a glory far eclipsing the glory of the stars; from between the cherubim will radiate a glory that will make pale a thousand suns; and that new light will reveal objects and disclose hues which to us are quite imperceptible in the light that now is.

In that shining light we shall see all beautiful things with far greater intensity. The light which now discloses to us the tints and colours of flowers, the beauties and splendour of the stars, of gems, and of the rainbow, shall die; but the perfect light, which is to supersede it, will reveal all these things in intenser brilliancy, displaying beauties which we have not seen-hidden splendours, as yet concealed or disguised. We shall then find that this earth, the workmanship of God, has beauty and glory and magnificence within it, which eye hath not yet seen, nor man's heart ever yet conceived. that pure light all the discoveries hitherto made by science will appear as nothing when compared with the disclosures that will then come in waves of glory within the horizon. Mines of interesting thought, stores of rich and varied treasures will be laid bare, and exquisite harmonies, now silent, will evolve from creation. We shall find that all that science and research have yet done is to bring us to the margin of the mighty

In

The

ocean of mystery and beauty, whose contents and treasures remain to be fully and clearly comprehended. Then the tree of knowledge will no longer be separated from the tree of life; both shall own the same root and blossom on the same soil. The light which is to be will also reveal what the light which now is cannot do. The light of our sun reveals to us colour-material colour and material shapes, but nothing more. light that is to supersede it will reveal not only these, but also moral and spiritual character; showing us that holiness is essential beauty, the highest purity the greatest brightness. It will unveil to us a glory in holy character far surpassing that possessed by sun, moon, or stars; by flower, fruit, and all things beautiful on earth. We shall then see that the purest beauty in this world is but a dim exponent of that excelling moral beauty to be disclosed in the New Jerusalem. But this new and glorious light will also cast its rays over all the history of the past, and will emphatically fulfil the words of our Lord: "What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.' At present much of our life is involved in mystery; many things happen to us, the meaning of which we cannot comprehend ! That dark and freezing cloud, which now casts its shadow on your heart, and which you cannot understand, has its mission, and the new light will disclose it. That stroke which smote down your first-born and fairest, has a meaning and an issue, though you could not then understand it; and that blow which you cannot think of now without shedding tears of bitterness, will then be seen to have been but the touch of a Father who loved -a stroke inflicted by the hand that was nailed to the cross for you. That labyrinth, now inexplicable -that mystery now unfathomable-those dealings of Providence which you cannot now comprehend, will then be seen distinctly to have had an aim and a beneficence which shall awaken in you new songs of gratitude, and inspire you with deeper thankfulness to Him who led you all the way through the wilderness, and placed you there. Then shall you see all things to have

been working together for your good, and that the darkest cloud had ever a smiling face behind it, and that the bitterest cup had in it a secret sweet. The great chain of mystery will be then lifted above the stream; every link will be luminous, and you will be convinced in glory of what you so much doubt or disbelieve on earth, viz., that you received not one stripe too many, endured not one pang too severe, were not subjected to one visitation that was not as essential to your ultimate happiness as that Christ should have died on the cross, and washed you with his own precious blood. This glorious light will not only diffuse splendour over the past, but it will place us in a position for solving mysteries, and elucidating truths, which we cannot now comprehend. For instance, we often dispute about the harmony that subsists, or ought to subsist, between predestination, or election, and the doctrine of free-will. We read plainly that we are chosen before the foundation of the world; we read as plainly-" Why will ye not come unto me: why will ye die ?" We are satisfied from the one passage of the sovereignty of God; from the other, of the freedom of the human will, as well as our responsibility. We are staggered, and cannot reconcile them; they appear to us altogether discordant. But, amid the light that shines in the New Jerusalem, both will be seen to be not only great truths, but the one shall be shown to be in perfect harmony with the other. Take another truth: salvation by grace, and yet the necessity for good works. We cannot comprehend now how good works should have nothing to do with salvation, and yet that we should be called upon to be fruitful in every good work. We shall then see that the two are essentially connected; that the one is as indispensable as the other. Now we see truths only in fragments; then we shall see them as a complete whole and in full. Now to us truth seems an apocrypha; then it will be an apocalypse. Now we see the greatest truths surrounded by the greatest mysteries, as the loftiest mountains ever cast around them the broadest shadows; then the sun will be vertical, and no truth