and recognize his child again. Had David said, on this occasion, "I too shall die; my soul shall go to the place of departed spirits, and my body shall be buried in the ground; but my child shall never come back again to earth," this would have been a mere truism; it is no expression of hope or comfort. But when he says, I shall go to him, we understand him to say, "I shall see him again, I shall know him again, I shall embrace him again; "" and we then understand how he was comforted under the afflictive bereavement.

There are two passages in St. Paul's Epistles which seem to place this subject beyond all question. They prove, at least, "that St. Paul anticipated on the last day a personal knowledge of those on his part, and a personal reunion with them, with whom he had been connected in this life by the ties of pastoral offices and kind affection."* To the Colossians he expresses the anxious desire of being able, in the day of Christ, to "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus;" and to the Thessalonians he thus writes: "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy." Here this great apostle evidently anticipates with delight the time when he should meet these persons before the throne, and "present" them to the Lord Jesus, "as the seals" to borrow the language of the pious Doddridge-" which God had been pleased to set to his labors, and as amiable friends in whose converse and love he hoped to be

* Mant's Happiness of the Blessed, p. 82

258 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN.

forever happy." On this latter text the learned Dr. Macknight thus beautifully remarks: "The manner in which the apostle speaks of the Thessalonians shows that he expected to know his converts at the day of judgment. If so, we may hope to know our relations and friends then. And as there is no reason to think that in the future life we shall lose those natural and social affections which constitute so great a part of our present enjoyment, may we not expect that these affections, purified from every thing animal and terrestrial, will be a source of our happiness in that life likewise? It must be remembered, however, that in the other world we shall love one another, not so much on account of the relation and friendship which formerly subsisted between us, as on account of the knowledge and virtue which we possess; for among rational beings, whose affections will all be suited to the high state of moral and intellectual perfection to which they shall be raised, the most endearing relations and warmest friendships will be those which are founded on excellence of character. What a powerful consideration this to excite us to cultivate in our relations and friends the noble and lasting qualities of knowledge and virtue, which will prove such a source of happiness to them, and to us, through the endless ages of eternity!" If St. Paul expected to know his converts at the day of judgment, may not every Christian minister indulge this hope? Can there be a higher, holier anticipation — always excepting the hope of enjoying the beatific presence of God, and our Savior, and the holy angels-than that of meeting those whom we may have been instrumental in reclaim

ing from sin to holiness, and rescuing from the bitter pains of eternal death, to exalt them to glory, honor, and immortality? In heaven, the love of God and the love of our neighbor will be our highest duty, our highest privilege, our highest joy; and so we trust it will be in reference to those endearments which now constitute the chief charm of life: they will be purified, strengthened, and perpetuated.

"I count the hope no daydream of the mind,
No vision fair of transitory hue,

The souls of those whom once on earth we knew,
And loved and walked with in communion kind,
Departed hence, again in heaven to find.

Such hope to nature's sympathies is true;
And such we deem the holy word to view
Unfolds- an antidote for grief designed,
One drop from comfort's well. 'Tis thus we read
The book of life; but if we read amiss,
By God prepared fresh treasures shall succeed
To kinsmen, fellows, friends, a vast abyss

Of joy; nor aught the longing spirit need,
To fill its measure of unmingled bliss."

BISHOP MANT.

HEAVEN.

REV. H. MELVILL.

"And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign forever and ever."-REVELATION Xxii. 5.

"THEY need no candle;" nay, they need not even the "light of the sun." "The Lord God giveth them light :"

is not this to say that the Lord God giveth them himself? for remember what is affirmed by St. John-"This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." And therefore God, in some ineffable way, is to communicate himself to the soul. There will probably be a communication of ideas; * God will substitute his ideas, great, noble, luminous, for our own, contracted, confused, obscure; and we shall become like him in our measure, though participating his knowledge. There will be a communication of excellences God will so vividly impress his image upon us that we shall be holy even as he is holy. There will be a communication of happiness; God will cause us to be happy in the very way in which he is happy himself, making what constitutes his felicity to constitute ours, so that we shall be like him in the sources or springs of enjoyment. All this seems included in the saying that the Lord God is to give us light. And though we feel that we are but laboring to describe, by all this accumulation of expression, what must be experienced before it can be understood, we may yet hope that we have caught something of the grandeur of the thought, that God himself is to be to us, hereafter, what the sun in the firmament is to us here. We wish to give, if possible, something of definiteness to the thought, by observing what an enlargement it supposes of all the powers of our nature; for now it would consume us to be brought into intimate intercourse with God; we must have the sun, we must have the candle; our faculties are not adapted to the living

*Saurin.

in his presence, where there is no veil upon his lustres. Hence we have in the figurative sketch of the text, in the part which makes God the source of all illumination, as well as in that which asserts the presence of night, a representation of man as nobly elevated amongst orders of being, and of the sublimest knowledge as thrown open to his search. Man is elevated, for he has passed from the ordinances and institutions of an introductory state to the open vision and free communion of spirits who never sullied their immortality. The sublimest knowledge is made accessible; for, with God for his sun, into what depths can he penetrate, and not find fresh truths? With God as his temple, along what aisle of the stupendous edifice can he pass, and not collect from every column and every arch majestic discoveries? Where can he stand, and not hear the pervading spirit of the sanctuary breathing out secrets which he had vainly striven to explore, and wonders which he had not dared to conjecture. And thus, if it be a blessed thing to know that hereafter, set free from all the trainings of an elementary dispensation, we shall take our place, in the beauty and might of our manhood, amongst the nobles of creation; that, gifted with capacities, and privileged with opportunities for deriving from immediate contact with Deity acquaintance with all that is illustrious in the universe, we shall no longer need those means and agencies, whether of nature or grace, which, whilst they strengthen and inform, prove us not made perfect; yea, if it be a blessed thing to know this, it is also a blessed thing to hear that there shall be no candle, no sun, in the heavenly Jerusalem. The substitution of