90. Reward Beyond
Reward Beyond
ACTIVITY IN HEAVEN.—Heaven, to be a place of happiness, must be a place of activity. Has the far-reaching mind of Newton ceased its profound investigations? Has David hung up his harp? Has Paul, glowing with God-like enthusiasm, ceased itinerating the universe of God? Are Peter and Cyprian and Edwards and Payson and Evarts idling away Eternity? Heaven is a place of activity, the abode of never-tiring thought. David and Isaiah will sweep nobler and loftier strains in Eternity, and the minds of the saints, unclogged by cumbersome clay, will forever feast on the banquet of rich and glorious thought. Go on, then; you will never get through. An Eternity of untiring action is before you, and the universe of thought is your field.
QUESTIONS ABOUT HEAVEN.—A little girl was going to bed. Her sister used to sleep on the pillow beside her. “Mamma,” asked she, “whom do you think Fanny sleeps with now in Heaven?” “There is no night there,” answered her mother. “Mamma,” asked the little girl, “does a soul have eyes to see with? Will Fanny know us when we come?” “The Bible tells us that we shall see as we are seen and know as we are known,” replied mother. “We shall see then,” said the little girl; “but our eyes will not be crying eyes, will they, mamma?” “No, my child. God will wipe away all tears,” said her mother. “And we shall not keep wanting thing’s,” said little Jane. “No, my darling,” said her mother, taking her little girl in her arms; for, “we shall be satisfied, when we awake, with His likeness.”
SWEETER BECAUSE OF DEPRIVATION.—A poor blind woman intimated in conversation, “Heaven will be sweet to me, because I have never seen the light of the sun, nor the green fields, nor the human face. And oh, when light bursts on me for the first time, and I see Jesus and the glories of Heaven, it will be sweet to me.” NO NIGHT, NO GRAVES.—A little child filled the heart of a grieving mourner with joy, by saying as she pointed to Heaven, “There are no graves there.” Upon the tombstone of a girl, blind from her birth, is this inscription, “There is no night there.”
WHAT WILL NOT BE THERE.—Of the positive joys of Heaven we can form no conception; but its negative delights form a sufficiently attractive picture: no pain; no thirst; no hunger; no horror of the past; no fear of the future; no failure of the mental capacity; no morbid imaginations; no follies; no insulted feelings; no wounded affections; no despised love; no hate, envy, jealousy, or indignation; no falsehood, dishonesty, dissimulation, hypocrisy, grief, or remorse.
DURATION OF HEAVEN.—Suppose the whole world were a sea, and that when every thousand years expired, a bird must carry away or drink up only one drop of it. In process of time, it will come to pass that this sea, though very huge, shall be dried up; but yet many thousand millions of years must be passed before this can be done. Now, if a man should enjoy happiness in Heaven only for the space of time in which this sea is drying up, he would think his case most happy and blessed; but behold! the elect shall enjoy the kingdom of Heaven not only for that time, but, when it is ended, they shall enjoy it as long again; and, when all is done, they shall be as far from the ending of this their joy as they were at the beginning.