An Eye on Heaven

A WISE man who is setting out for a foreign country — especially if he intends to reside there — will study the localities in that land, and seek to become acquainted with the language and the customs of its people. His thoughts will be much upon it. But do the great majority even of true Christians spend much time on thought about heaven? Yet it is to be their dwelling-place through innumerable ages. At no distant day — perhaps within a few days to some of us — the veil that hides the eternal world may drop, and the gates of the Father’s house may open before our astonished vision! If heaven is ready for Christ’s redeemed people, then igS BE ULA H-LA ND.

surely they should be making ready for heaven.

We ouofht to be thinkinof more about our future and everlasting home. If our treasures are there, then our hearts should be there also in frequent and joyful anticipations. John Bunyan tells us of his Pilerim that “his heart waxed warm about the place whither he was going.” This world is not our rest. It is only our temporary lodging-place, our battle-ground to fight sin and Satan, our vineyard in which to labor for our Master and our fellow-men until sundown, our training-school for the development of character and growth in grace. A thoroughly spiritual person, who makes Jesus Christ real and the powers of the world to come real, and who has set his affections on things above, must inevitably have some deep meditations about his home and his maornificent inheritance. He loves to read about it, and gathers up eagerly the few grand, striking things which his Bible tells him about the jasper walls, and the gates of pearl, and the trees that bear twelve manner of fruits, and the crystal streams that flow flashing from beneath the throne of God. Among his favorite hymns are “Jerusalem the Golden” and the “Shining Shore “; they are like rehearsals for his part by-and-by in the sublime oratorios of heaven. Sometimes, when cares press heavily, or bodily pains wax sharp, or bereavements darken his house, he gets homesick, and he says, “Oh that I had wings, like a dove; then would I fly away and be at rest!”

Such devout meditations do not prove any man or woman to be a dreamy mystic. They are not the pious sentimentalizings of mourners to whom this world has lost all its charm, or of enthusiasts whose religion evaporates in mere emotion. The hundred-handed Paul constantly reminds his fellow-workers that their “citizenship is in heaven.” The godly Samuel Rutherford, who was said to be always studying, always preaching, and always visiting the sick, found time to feed on anticipations of Paradise. He tells us that he often longed to “stand at the outer side of the gates of the New Jerusalem and look throug-h a crevice of the door and see Christ’s face.” He exclaims, “Oh, time, run fast! Oh, fair day, when wilt thou dawn? Oh, shadows, flee away! Oh, well-beloved Bridegroom, be thou to me like the roe or the young hart on the mountains!” No man in modern times has written any volume so full of heavenly aspirations as Richard Baxter’s “Saint’s Everlasting Rest.” Yet Baxter was one of the most practical of philanthropists. While meditating on the Better Country he wore his busy life out in striving to make England a better country; and the town of Kidderminster was revolutionized by his ceaseless labors for the bodies and the souls of its inhabitants. Intense spirituality and intense practicality were beautifully united in the late Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston. If he kept one eye on heaven, he kept the other wide open to see the sins and the snares and the sorrows of his fellow-creatures all around him. I verily believe that if we thought more about heaven, and realized more its ineffable blessedness, we would strive harder to get others there; we would not be content to travel thither on a path only wide enough for one.

It is no wonder that some professed Christians do not catch more dis-tinct 26 glimpses of the celestial world. Their vision is obscured. As a very small object when held close to the eye will hide even the sun at noonday, so a Christian may hold a dollar so close to the eye of his soul as to shut out both Christ and heaven. Fishes down in the Mammoth Cave become eyeless at last; and so will any of us lose even the faculty of seeing if we shut ourselves in a cavern of grinding worldliness or utter unbelief. Perhaps some reader of this article may despondingly say, ‘* Well, I never get any sight of heaven; I am all in a mist; nothing but clouds and darkness before my eyes.” My friend, look where you are standing. You are in Satan’s marshy grounds and among the quagmires where the fogs dwell continually. Ever since you left the “King’s highway,” ever since you forsook the straight path of duty, ever since you quit honest praying and Christian work, and God’s Book for your ledger, and the service of Christ for the service of Mammon, you have strayed away into the devil’s territory! Heaven is not visible to backsliders. And never until your feet take hold again of that strait path of sincere, unselfish obedience to Jesus Christ, and your eyes are washed out with some sincere tears of repentance, will you have any fresh, gladdening glimpse of that rest which remaineth for the people of God. Throw off your load, my friend, and the sins that so easily beset you, and, getting your feet again in the track, run with patience the race set before you, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. When you get your eye fixed again on Christ you will no longer complain that heaven is utterly out of sight. Those whose conversation is in heaven, and who keep it constantly before them, have abundant sources of spiritual joy. They renew their strength as they push upward and heavenward. What is it to them that the road is long and sometimes the hills of difificulty are steep, that there are often lions in the way, that there are crosses to be carried, that there are some valleys of the death-shadow to be threaded, and that not far ahead is that river over which there is no bridge! All these things do not disturb them. Heaven lieth at the end of the way, clothed in its purple and its golden light. The Mount Zion is there — the city of the living God and the innumerable company of angels, some of whom may turn out to be old friends who have had their eye on us ever since we were born into Christ. From the hilltops we can, with the spy-glass of faith, bring heaven so near that we can see its “bulwarks with salvation strong” and “its streets of shining gold.”

These views of the certain and assuredly promised inheritance of glory ought to quicken our zeal prodigiously. The time is short, and shortening every day. If we are to have treasures there we must be securing them; no time is to be lost. If we are to lead any souls there we must be out after them. If we are to wear any crown there, however humble, we must win it. Christian zeal depends on inward warmth; and much of that heat must come from heaven. “When,” exclaimed grand old Baxter, “when, oh my soul, hast thou been warmest y When hast thou most forgot thy wintry sorrows y Is it not when thou hast got above, closest to Jesus Christ, and hast conversed with him, and viewed the mansions of glory, and filled thyself with sweet foretastes, and talked with the inhabitants of the higher world?” Certain it is that he who loves not Christ and his fellow-men loves not heaven; and he who loves not heaven is not very likely to see heaven. A true life is just a tarrying and a toiling in this earthly tent for Christ until we go into the mansions with Christ. Fellow- workers, the miles to heaven are few and short; let us be found busy in heart and hand when the summons sounds, *’ Come up hither T

TREESCORE AND TEN.

To me the years have gentler grown,

And time more gracious now than then, Though here I sit and muse alone, Threescore and ten.

The best of living is the last,

And life seems sweetest at its close; And something richer than the past These days disclose.

I mourn not now the silvered hair,

The trembling hand, the failing power, As here I wait and calmly dare The coming hour.

What dreams of honor or of gain,

Of wreaths or crowns to grace my brow, Once stirred my spirit, none remain To stir me now.

The tossing life, the hope and fear,

The strife, the pain of earlier days — On these, all past, I look with clear. Unshrinking gaze.

And even when I sorrow most,

Yet happy are the tears I shed, And bri-g.ht the memories of the lost: The precious dead.

The increase of the corn and wine,

And growing gladness in the heart,

And wondrous grace and joy are mine,

From men apart.

Alone, but not alone, I stand;

Around, above, a Power devine
Is shining, and a heavenly Hand
Is touching mine.

Strange glories gild my closing day,

And one bright star from out the west Calls me in tender tones away From work to rest.

And voices which amid the din

Of outward life I could not hear
Are gently whispering within

Their words of cheer.

So, welcome is each flying year,

And welcome is this silent bliss; Nor aught the noisy world can bear Compares with this.

And so, reclining on the slope

Of life, apart from busy men,
I firmly grasp this larger hope — Threescore and ten I

Edward D. Morris, D. D.
Lane Seminary, Ohio.