That word, life is always music--that word, next to the word "God in Christ," has in it the deepest meaning in the world. Let us cross the flood where that life especially is, whose path the Savior is to show, the mansions which he has gone to prepare. Jesus is called, "The true God and eternal life." What is this eternal life, which is held before the believer's eye, and chartered as his privilege?
This life is conscious; death cannot for one moment paralyze the soul. Paul said it was "far better to depart." He knew the moment he was released from mortality he should be with Christ. There is no moment's interval of slumber for the soul--we do not cease to be. We only change the conditions of our being. There is no human soul, which from the day of Adam until now has ever dwelt in clay; that is, not alive to-day! It is a conscious world into which we are passing.
Again; heaven is not a solitude. If is a peopled city--where there are no strangers, no homeless, no poor, where one does not pass another in the street without greeting, where no one is envious of another's superior minstrelsy or another's more brilliant crown. They are not only with the Savior, but with the "General Assembly," and with "the spirits of the just made perfect;" all affections are pure, all enjoy conscious recognition, all abide in perpetual recognition, abide in perpetual reunion, in a home without a discord, without an illness, without a grave.
Take comfort, then; those from whom you have parted or whom you shall have soon to separate, shall be your companions again, recognized as of old, and loved with a purer love.
The resurrection and the life-- what heart is not thrilled with the preciousness of the promise--who does not feel more grateful to the Redeemer, who brings him life? Enjoyed recompense, recovered friends--there for ever and Jesus with us there! by Rev. Wm. Morley Punshon D. D.
