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 forever!"

CHAPTER VII.

THE HEAVENLY BANQUET.

66 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 fear, the necessities and conveniences of

existence, will draw men together, in larger or smaller circles, notwithstanding wide diversities of culture. It is in company that they roam and pitch their tents, that they engage in war and amusement. Commerce, the arts, law, history, and language itself, are only manifestations of this universal characteristic. Isolation is artificial. It does violence to nature. The man absolutely removed from human intercourse is withdrawn from the atmosphere which all must breathe to live. A hermit, happy or useful, is an impossibility.

"The remark was shrewd,

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, -Solitude is sweet."

The questions arise, Is this pervading element of our nature extinguished by death? or does the love of society survive the grave? and, if so, under what circumstances will it be manifested?

In the preceding chapter we inferred, from the considerations, that personal identity is to be preserved; that, doubtless, all which is essential to identity is just that, no more, no less, which -is requisite for recognition; that all the faculties of the mind-perception and recollection among

them are to be wonderfully quickened; that it does violence to the demands of our nature to suppose the opposite; that no valid objections can be adduced; and that the Scripture intimations strongly favor it; from all this it was concluded that Christian friends will know one another in heaven. But is simple recognition all? Are saints merely to meet in glory, then go their several ways, without further intercourse; or to sit down side by side in lasting silence ?

Why are we to know and be known; why is memory, with quickened powers, to summon up the past; why is the heart to rejoice in the continuance of former attachments, only stronger and purer than before, if it be not that communion; more free and exalted, is to be enjoyed forever? All reasons for recognition derive their main force from something beyond, to which recognition is only an introduction. If occasion required, we might summon before us the same witnesses who gave their testimony in favor of recognition. The venerable philosopher of Athens would say, "Are there not numbers who, upon the death of their lovers, wives, and children, have chosen, of their own accord, to enter Hades, induced by the hope of seeing there those they loved, an of living with