of separation; and how soon all who love the Lord will be gathered to the general assembly and church of the first-born in heaven, that most regal assemblage of men and women, of whom the world is not worthy. This is no picture of the imagination. Listen to the testimony of Payson:

"Were I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the land of Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he approached; and now he fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun, exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm.

A single heart and a single tongue seem altogether inadequate to my wants. I want a whole heart for every separate emotion, and a whole tongue to express that emotion. that emotion. I seem to swim in a flood of glory, which God pours down upon me. And I know, I know, that my happiness is but begun. I cannot doubt that it will last forever. I do not merely know that I shall enjoy all this; I enjoy it now. I have suffered twenty times, yes, to speak within bounds, twenty times, as much as I could in being burnt at the stake, while my joy in God so abounded as to render my sufferings not only tolerable, but welcome. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. I have no tears to shed now, but those of love, joy, and thankfulness." This is an experience of heaven as a state, while yet on earth.

Nor are such experiences only of former times, or confined to ministers at the altar. I have been many times an eye-witness at the dying bed of those unknown to fame, sometimes of those without the sympathy of friends, unassisted by careful religious training, whose foretaste of heaven was equally obvious. Said one such: "You have, doubtless, heard that my Father has

summoned me; I am, therefore,

setting my

house in order.' At times it seems like a dream

to me, that I am so

soon to pass away. But I

am not going to die. It is only the dust returning unto dust. The grave will have no victory. The words of our Saviour assure me: Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.' I am only to be translated into a deeper life; my poor wearied frame is to be at rest; but my soul is going onward in rapid progression. I have hold of my Father's hand. I fear not for my safety; for I know that my Redeemer liveth."

In the light of such experiences, is it not a reasonable belief, that to die is to pass into, and not out of, a state entirely consonant with our finest, deepest sensibilities? Many and many a true-hearted child of God, perhaps under the evil influence of an unhappy education, has through life contemplated the end of life with terror ; under the persuasion that, however good a thing it might be, to be safely arrived in heaven, yet the transition to a state entirely unlike all earthly experience must, at the best, be a transition of stupendous and even terrible peculiarity: a most unwarranted, as well as most unhappy, assumption. Such was not David's apprehension, when he said: "I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy

likeness." Nor Stephen's, when he looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. Nor is such the apprehension of a great company of believers, who are daily passing out of life,

"As sets the morning star, which goes

Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides
Obscured among the tempests of the sky,
But melts away into the light of heaven."

Thy search, philosopher, and thou shalt win
Thy way deep down into the soul. The light
Shed in by God shall open to thy sight

Vast powers of being; regions long untrod

Shall stretch before thee, filled with life and God;
And faculties come forth, and put to shame

Thy vain and curious reasonings."

R. H. DANA.

THE measure of our present felicity in the anticipation of heaven will depend mainly upon our estimate of Christ.

In the Bible, heaven and eternal life are synonymous, or convertible, terms. Our Saviour, in his prayer for his disciples, says: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Now, if you join to this assertion Christ's declaration that he came to preach the good news of salvation to the poor, and also his ascription of thanks to the Father, that while these things