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remembrance of every existing relation, however, that bears the consecrating impress of piety, and the recognition or acquired knowledge of any individual spirit that maintained and promoted the great cause of Christ, must surely awaken the deepest interest, and the most pleasurable feelings.

What a moment, then, of intense, accumulated, and diversified emotion must that be, which will bring together the entire family of man, and embody the aggregate result of all the thoughts, purposes, and actions which shall then be found to have had any relation to the present world! What a flow of joy to the sons of God will that be, which will be produced by the confluent streams of all past and future time! What welcomes and greetings will spring up with the interviews which the great day will secure to them! What agreeable surprise may be occasioned by the sight of some endeared kindred safely landed, with the rest, on the shores of the "better country," and supposed before to have been wrecked on the ocean of eternity! What a simultaneous burst of gratitude will that be, which will proceed from the great body of the faithful, on finding themselves complete in number, and individually perfect in the image of Jehovah! And how sublime are the intimations of scripture on the subject! The command is issued from the throne--" Praise our God

all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great." And there is heard forthwith "the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

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These are the visions of faith; and though compared with the reality, they must be exceedingly indistinct, yet are they sufficient to fill the soul of every believer with holy wonder, and to extort from him the exclamation of the beloved disciple, 'Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God!" He that has a pure and rational hope of realizing such prospects, possesses a principle which is as an anchor to the soul, keeping it "sure and steadfast," amidst the storms and changes of life, and inspiring with a holy confidence in the hour of death. It is a "high vocation" to which he is called. However obscure his station, or profound the contempt with which the thoughtless and profane may be disposed to regard him, he is an heir of immortality, and stands upon an eminence which is exalted in proportion to the humility of his mind, and from which he may truly look down

upon all the pageantry of the immeasurably beneath him.

earth as an object "What manner of

person, then, ought he to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" Why should he envy the most favoured children of men, for the fleeting and factitious distinctions of life? He has before him a prize in comparison with which every earthly sceptre and crown dwindles into insignificance. How can his soul be awed into servile fear on the one hand, or inflated on the other with pride, seeing that he is born to an eternal and incorruptible inheritance, and is indebted for the same entirely to the grace and sufferings of Christ, "who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Let him therefore fix the eye of his faith upon "the recompense of reward," and carry the vision with him into every scene and relation of life. Thus will he acquire a consciousness of the moral dignity of his destination, which will help him patiently to bear his afflictions, and which will keep alive in his bosom an ambition, whose character is as pure as the object is elevated at which it grasps.

We shall only take occasion to remark, in conclusion, how beautifully the descriptive scenes of heaven, which are presented before us in the word of God, are adapted to that strong tendency which there is in the human mind to range abroad in

regions of ideal excellence, and to delight in framing for itself combinations of imaginary good. Formed for the exalted employments and pleasures of immortality, and dwelling in a world which falls so short of our wishes and conceptions of what is lovely and desirable, there are few, especially in the period of youth, who have not harboured visions of beauty and social enjoyment far more refined, permanent, and thrilling, than ever come within the range of our present experience. The disclosures of revelation concerning the celestial world, sanctify, as well as meet this powerful principle of our nature, and assure us that the most pure and beauteous creations of the imaginative faculty, fall far short of the realities which are reserved for the sons of God.

CHAPTER VII.

THE DIFFICULTIES AND OBJECTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE DOCTRINE OF PERPETUATED FRIENDSHIP.

WHEN a proposition is established by unquestionable evidence, every principle of just reasoning obliges us to give it our assent, in spite of its apparent inconsistency with other acknowledged truths. If we refuse to admit this rule, the proper range of our belief must dwindle into a most contracted circle, and reason will soon find herself launched out on the dreary and interminable ocean of scepticism, bereft of that which is at once her compass and anchor-hold. Every one knows, that many of the most important and indubitable truths are connected, and necessarily, with difficulties which baffle the highest efforts of human ingenuity and research. We admit the doctrine of a supreme and uncreated Intelligence to be an established and fundamental article of religion, which

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