Heaven

A geeat many persons imagine that anything said about heaven is only a matter of speculation. They talk about heaven like the air. Now there would not have been so much in Scripture on this subject if God had wanted to leave the human race in darkness about it. All Scripture, we are told, is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect — thoroughly furnished unto all good works. What the Bible says about heaven, is just as true as what it says about everything else. It is inspired. What we are taught about heaven could not have come to us in any other way but by inspiration. No one knew anything about it but God, and so if we want to find out anything about it, we have to turn to His Word. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, says that the best evidence of the Bible being the word of God, is to be found between its own two covers. It proves itself. In this respect it is like Christ, whose character proclaimed the divinity of His person. Christ showed Himself more than man by what he did. The Bible shows itself more than a human book by what it says. It is not, however, because the Bible is written with more than human skill, far surpassing Shakspeare or any other human author, and that its knowledge of character and the eloquence it contains are beyond the powers of man; that we believe it to be inspired.

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Men’s ideas differ about the extent that human skill can go; but the reason why we believe the Bible is inspired, is so simple that the humblest child of God can comprehend it. If the proof of its divine origin lay in its wisdom alone, a simple and uneducated man might not be able to believe it. We believe it is inspired, because there is nothing in it that could not have come from God. God is wise, and God is good. There is nothing in the Bible that is not wise, and there is nothing in it that is not good. If the Bible had anything in it that was opposed to reason, or to our sense of right, then, perhaps, we might think that it was like all the books in the world that are written merely by men. Books that are just human books, like merely human lives, have in them a great deal that is foolish and a great deal that is wrong. The life of Christ alone was perfect, being both human and divine. Not one of the other volumes, like the Koran, that claim divinity of origin, agree with common sense. There is nothing at all in the Bible that does not conform to common sense. What it tells us about the world having been destroyed by a deluge, and Nos.h and his family alone being saved, is no more wonderful than what is being taught in the schools, that all of the earth we see now, and everything upon it, came out of a ball of fire. It is a great deal easier to believe that man was made after the image of God, than it is to believe, as some young men and worn n are being taught now, that he was once a monkey.

Like all the other wonderful works of God, this Book bears the sure stamp of its author. It is like Him. Though man plants the seeds, God makes the flowers, and they are perfect and beautiful like Himself. Men wrote what is in the Bible, but the work is God’s. The more refined, as a rule, people are, the fonder they are of the flowers, and the better they are, as a rule, the more they love the Bible.

The fondness for flowers refines people, and the love of the Bible makes them better. All that is in the Bible about God, about man, about redemption, and about a future state, agrees with our own ideas of right, with our reasonable fears and with our personal experiences. All the historical things are told in the way that we know the world had of looking at them when they were written. What the Bible tells about heaven is not half so strange as what Professor Proctor tells about the hosts of stars that are beyond the range of any telescope — and yet people very often think that science is all fact, and that religion is only fancy. A great many persons think that Jupiter and many more of the stars around us are inhabited, who cannot bring themselves to believe that there is a life beyond this earth for immortal souls. The true Christian puts faith before reason, and believes that reason always goes wrong when faith is set aside. If people would but read their Bibles more, and study what there is to be found there about Heaven, they would not be as worldly-minded as they are. They would not have their hearts set upon things down here, but would seek the imperishable things above.

EARTH THE HOME OF SIN”.

It seems perfectly reasonable that God should have given us a glimpse of the future, for we are constantly losing some of our friends by death, and the first thought that comes to us is, “where have they gone?” When a loved one is taken away from us, how that thought comes up before us! How we wonder if we will ever see them again, and where and when it will be! Then it is that we turn to this blessed Book, for there is no other book in all the world that can give us the slighest comfort; no other book that can tell us where the loved ones have gone.

Not long ago I met an old friend, and as I took him by the hand and asked after his family, the tears came trickling down his cheeks as he said:

“I haven’t any now.”

“What,” I said, “is your wife dead?”

“Yes sir.”

“And all your children, too?”

“Yes, all gone,” he said, “and I am left here desolate and alone.”

Would any one take from that man the hope that he will meet his dear ones again? ‘Would any one persuade him that there is not a future where the lost will be found? No, we need not forget our dear loved ones; but we may cling forever to the enduring hope that there will be a time when we can meet unfettered, and be blest in that land of everlasting .suns, where the soul drinks from the living streams of love that roll by God’s high throne.

In our inmost hearts there are none of us but have questionings of the future.

“Tell me, my secret soul,

0, tell me, Hope and Faith,

Is there no resting place

From sorrow, sin and death?

Is there no happy spot

Where mortals may be blest,

Where grief may find a balm,

And weariness a rest?
Faith, Hope and Love — best boons to mortals given — Waved their bright wings, and whispered:
Yes, in heaven!”

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