pears." "And I want to see who is there; I want to see brother Sanford, and brother Niles, and brother Spring, and Dr. Hopkins, and Dr. West, and a great many other ministers, with whom I have been associated in this world, but who have gone before me. I believe I shall meet them in heaven; and, it seems to me, our meeting there must be peculiarly interesting." He added, "I want to see, too, the old prophets, and the apostles. What a society there will be in heaven! There we shall see such men as Moses, and Isaiah, and Elijah, and David, and Paul; I want to see Paul more than any man I can think of."

The question, Shall we know our friends and others in heaven? is answered. The intimations of God's word all favor it; and those intimations accord with the irrepressible demands of the human soul. It was doubtless, in part, to encourage this hope that Moses and Elias appeared to the disciples, and talked with them on the mount of glory. And if those who never met on earth are to recognize one another in heaven, shall not personal friends much more? Most evidently was it the apostle's expectation to recognize his Corinthian, Colossian and Thessalonian friends; and has he been disappointed? And will not other, yea, all

the sanctified intimacies of earth, be perpetuated in the everlasting home of the redeemed? Every place of holy fellowship and prayer answers, Yes. Every inner recess of the heart answers, Yes.

Blessed gathering! Blessed greetings! Joyful indeed will be the mutual recognition of earthly friends who are one in Christ. Joyful indeed will be the meeting of those who have taken sweet counsel together, who have devoutly prayed and sung together, who have been companions in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. But unspeakable must be the joy of those who then behold in each other the instruments of their own conversion, or the results of their labors for the salvation of others, and jointly give all the glory to a present God. And O, what heart will then be large enough for the rapture of a successful ambassador of Christ!- of one like Paul, meeting the multitudes saved through his instrumentality? Signal indeed must be the grace that shall prevent such a soul from being completely overwhelmed in the transport of that hour. To find that his ministrations were owned beyond his thoughts; that many, by his preaching, were turned to righteousness; that a prayer for some apparently hopeless sinner was answered; to find youthful

professors edified, and aged saints comforted; that churches were refreshed, it may be, by his presence; that, directly or indirectly, foreign evangelization was accelerated by him; and all, only because sovereign grace called, enabled and persuaded him to the same. O, it requires other than human pens to describe the emotions of such men in glory!

But what friend in heaven do we most desire to see? No one can enter there whose heart looks not first of all at him who is seated on the great white throne. What are our ideas of the city of God? Is not Christ the light thereof? Is not the glory which he had before the world was, to be there displayed? Did the Eternal Son take a human form?-in it agonize in Gethsemane, be scourged in the judgment-hall, crucified on Golgotha, sleep in the sepulchre, and rise to heaven, and shall any other human form divert the eye from that? Are those the scars that speak of precious blood once shed for you? Are those the lips that cried, "It is finished"? And will we soon withdraw our gaze? No, much as we love all other friends, there is one in the kingdom of heaven who will make us temporarily forget them all. For years if there be years there-ay, for centuries,

it may be, will the Lamb of God absorb our souls. When we reach the city of God, we shall not, first of all, grasp the hands of present acquaintances. Of such an affront to the proprieties of heaven, no one, presented at the court of the King of kings, was ever guilty. Bowing down in such gratitude as we never knew before, gazing in a holy ecstasy of love, breaking forth into high and ceaseless praises, there shall we stand age after age. Not, it may be, till the world has been burnt up not till the elect have all been gathered home to their Father's house, shall we think of looking away from that brightness of the Father's glory, our Saviour, our dear Redeemer. Eternity will be long enough for all the sanctified attachments of earth to have full scope. But the first song, the everlasting song, will be, "Now unto him that loved us, and, hath washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory for

ever,"

CHAPTER VII.

THE HEAVENLY BANQUET.

"Apostles, martyrs, prophets, there,
Around my Saviour stand,

And soon my friends in Christ below
Will join the glorious band.

Jerusalem! my happy home,

My soul still pants for thee;
Then shall my sorrows have an end,
When I thy joys shall see."

FEW remarks are more trite than that man is a social being. Of all known beings he is the most So. For aught that appears to the contrary, he has a greater variety of desires and affections, and these possess greater flexibility and capacity of expansion, than exist in any other creature in the universe. The forms under which association takes place are exceedingly numerous, both in the family and community, as also in various special societies and combinations; but they all illustrate a common and powerful principle of human nature. Love and fair, the necessities and conveniences of