May 8

1 Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not in, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. 4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. 5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? 6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the

truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also; and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. 8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it safficeth us. 9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? be that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Screw us the Father? 10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak

14 unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwel,eth in me, he doeth the works.

11 I believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works' sake

12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeeth on me, the works that I do shall be do

also, and greater work than these shall be do; because I go unto my Father

13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son

14 If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it

Wonderful are the preparations which God has made for His people in heaven.

"When you lift up your eyes to heaven, and behold that spangled, azure canopy, beset and inlaid with so many golden studs and sparkling gems, you see but the floor or pavement of that place which God has prepared for some souls. He furnished this world for us before He put us into it; but, as delightful as it is, it is no more to be compared with the Father's house in heaven, than the smallest ruined chapel; your eyes ever beheld is to be compared with Solomon's temple, when it stood in all its glory."—Flavel.

"If dying was to be thrust out of life, and to emigrate to a land where we have no friends; where there are none that know us and where we know none; it would be a sad thing indeed. But if our names are known in heaven; if they are written in the Lamb's book of life, and if Jesus Christ has ever been our Head, our Leader, our Mediator, administering in our behalf and preparing a place for us, that where He is, there we may be also; then heaven will be familiar to us, and dying will not be so much to be deplored. After this life is over, heaven will seem to us like home. Already it begins to draw us. Our losses fly up there and become riches. If the cage-door lets out our warbler, the woods get him, even if we lose him. We hear him singing afar, even if he will not return to our hand. So we give to heavenly fields what we lose from earth. And the belief that in heaven our fathers have long dwelt, that we are going there, and that our names are there known and affectionately called, is comforting indeed."—H. W. Beecher.

Closet Promise.—They desire a better country, that is, an heavenly.— Heb. xi. 16.

"Who would not go With buoyant steps to gain that blessed portal Which opens to the land we long to know, Where shall be satisfied the soul's immortal; Where we shall drop the wearying and the woe In resting so.

"Oh, wonderous land! Faire: than all our spirit's fairest dreaming: 'Eye hath not seen'—no heart can understand The things prepared, the cloudless radiance streaming. How longingly we wait our Lord's command, His opening hand."