temple and the holy city. And wheresoever occupied, and howsoever, whether solitarily or in companies, we can suppose the redeemed to be always hymning the praises of their Saviour, so that we should find it more difficult to escape the voice of song through all the coasts of heaven than it is to escape from the voice of the lark and other songsters, in the woodland and in the meadow, on a genial summer day: but all this, let it be observed, not as exclusive occupation, but as expressive of the joy that accompanies all heaven's activities.

In these activities we have earth reproduced in heaven. Without them there would be a gulf between this world and that which would make it difficult for us to retain a sense of our own identity. "I could hardly wish to enter heaven," one has said, "did I believe its inhabitants were idly to sit by purling streams, fanned by balmy airs. 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 as useless as the dusty arms in Westminster Abbey? Has Paul, glowing with Godlike enthusiasm, ceased itinerating the universe of God? Are Peter, and John, and Whitfield, and Wesley, idling away eternity in mere psalm-singing? An eternity of untiring action is before us."

The chief respect in which earth will be reproduced in heaven is by the eternal perpetuation of the character formed on earth. And character is much more the man than his external surroundings. He may be clothed in purple to-day and in rags to-morrow, but if he have carried his character with him out of his purple into his rags, good or bad, he has carried with him all that is essential to his happiness or his misery. On a throne to-day, in prison to-morrow, it is not the throne or the prison that makes the man,- -it is his character. Dwelling now amid the snows of the Arctic regions and then amid the sands of the tropics, the cold and the heat make no difference to the man. Jesus Christ was the same on the cross with all its pain and shame that He was on the mount when the voice of honour from the excellent glory called Him God's beloved Son. Not that which surrounds us and is outward to us, but that which is in us and essential to us, constitutes the man, and is the true source of the man's weal or woe. If, therefore, we carry our character with us into heaven, our heaven will be a reproduction of our earth.

And than this there is nothing more certain. We may find that every imagination and dream we have had of heaven has been vain, has been utterly unlike the reality. But it must be that what we are when we leave the body, we shall be, in all essential respects, when we are out of the body. Ourselves shall be essentially unchanged.

I say, essentially. Because there will happily be much, though not essential change. We shall understand God as we cannot now. We shall have perceptions of the Divine glory such as we cannot now attain. We shall be away from a thousand hindrances to our progress which beset us now. And by these and other means not known to us we shall be freed from those remains of sin which are now the deepest grief of our life.

This last alone is a great change, and I have no doubt it will take place in the transition of the Christian from earth to heaven. What is there in death, it may be asked, to purify the soul? What is there in the separation of the soul from the body to separate the soul from sin? I answer that I do not know. And yet there may be something. Although the body is not the cause of sin, and the soul may be as sinful out of the body as in it, there may be hindrances to the perfect purifying of our nature connected with our present mode of life which must be taken out of the way before that perfect purifying is completed. But whether we can explain it or not, why should we limit the great Sanctifier, or doubt that He will find in our passage through the gate of death some means for the consummation of His own work? We must believe that He will, or we must believe one or other of those strange alternatives, either that the soul's purifying is perfected before death, or that the soul will carry some impurity with it into heaven. I see ground for neither supposition, and therefore I accept the common opinion that the soul is freed from all sin in its leaving of the body; not that death itself has power to purify, but that death is the occasion when the Spirit of God perfects His own work.

This doctrine will not be abused by sinner or saint if it be rightly understood. Not by the sinner-for our teaching is that death works no radical change in the character. We take our character with us through death— and we take nothing else. Our honours, our possessions, we leave behind. But our character, pure or impure, godly or godless, is not a garment or outward thing which may be dropped or cast away; it is, one might say, the soul itself, or the essential mode of the soul's existence. And what death finds it, death leaves it. There is no hope, then, that death will regenerate the sinner. It will only confirm and perfect the evil; it will not change the evil into good.

Nor will this doctrine be abused by the Christian if rightly understood. Let the Christian say, "I need not concern myself now to overcome the evils that are in me, they shall all be cleansed out of me when I die," and he betrays great confusion of mind and a most dangerous state of heart. The thought is an utterly unchristian one, and must excite doubts, to say the least of it, whether the man who entertains it is a Christian at all. If a man does not concern himself to overcome the evils that are in him, these evils will overcome him. There is no standing, no persevering in the Christian life, but by a constant war with sin. A spirit of resignation to the existence of sin in our soul or our life is not of God, but of the world.

The Christian, rightly understanding our doctrine, will not even say, "I need not concern myself now to attain high Christian excellence, for I shall suddenly and at once rise to such excellence when I die." For the man who concerns himself to have sin rooted out of him will concern himself at the same time to attain to positive and practical holiness. And the passing on to higher excellence is not less needful to the proof of our true faith than the maintaining a constant war with sin.

Besides, the form of speech which I have supposed is not warranted by

the doctrine I am teaching-" I shall suddenly and at once rise to high Christian excellence when I die." This by no means follows. That we can carry no sin with us into heaven is certain; that as soon as we enter heaven we shall attain to eminence in Christian excellence, is more than doubtful. One man is saved, yet so as by fire; he has had the root of the matter in him, but his Christian course has had many blemishes, has been marred by many negligences and inconsistencies, such as would evoke from the lips of his Lord those severe rebukes that were administered of old to the Asiatic Churches. Another man is not merely saved, but has an abundant entrance administered unto him. He has walked with great faithfulness in the steps of his Master. He has intensely and constantly hated the garment spotted by the flesh. He has adorned through his whole life the doctrine of God his Saviour. His course may be most fitly likened to that of the sun which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. These two men enter the Paradise of God together, and are accepted in the Beloved. But shall we suppose that they stand together on the same eminence, and enjoy the same honour, and are qualified for the same service? Both rescued from destruction, both delivered from all sin-to this extent they enjoy a common happiness; but as to all above and beyond this there may be differences vaster and more important than we can now conceive. At the least, it is scarcely within the compass of belief, that the man who lagged so far behind on earth should at once be on a level with the man who was so Christlike that all men saw in him the image of his God. And it is within the compass of belief that the difference between the two should be in some way visible for ages, if not for ever.

Let us fall back, then, on the thought that earth will be reproduced in heaven by the perpetuation of our character. To the true Christian this is a most joyful thought. Let him fight a good fight and keep the faith, and death will not separate him from Christ. Nor will he find himself a stranger in heaven. The principles of his new nature, long ripening, now matured, will make for him his heaven, and will make him happy and at home in all heaven's occupations.

This, too, is the Christian's joy that in the perpetuation of his character, his imperfections will not be perpetuated. These will be left behind as of the earth, and will grieve him no more. To the honest Christian, the Christian honestly struggling through grace with all that is evil in himself, it must be a joy to know that the struggle will come to an end, and that its ending will be a perfect victory over the world, the devil, and the flesh. With all the similarity we trace between earth and heaven, this makes a most blessed difference. Paul will not have to say any more, "O wretched man that I am," or, "I keep under my body lest I should be a castaway," or, "I groan, being burdened.” His onward and upward course will no longer be retarded by fears within or fightings without. And in this all the redeemed will be one with him. Without sin, or sense of sin, or fear of sin, they will serve their God day and night throughout the vast temple of the universe, like the angels that excel in strength and are ministers of His pleasure wherever they serve.

But with this thought of joy there comes to us strong and wholesome stimulus from that other thought, that while all the redeemed are one in mere freedom from sin, we know not what and how great differences there may be between them in other respects, arising from their earthly course and character. And the true use of this thought is not to afford matter for idle speculation, but to stimulate us to seek now to attain every moral beauty that can adorn a saint in glory. Let our imagination be exercised here if we will, and let it place before us in impressive and attractive form every excellence that can be discovered in the Paradise of God. And then, let heart, and will, and conscience, all unite to say, "that virtue, that grace, that beauty, shall be mine, the Lord Himself working in me and helping me."

How far this idea of the reproduction of earth in heaven may be fairly carried I do not know. We read in the Book of Revelation of a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, and of a tree of life which bears fruit every month. But the language is manifestly figurative, and designed to convey the general idea of perfect beauty and enjoyment. Of the real, literal, outward forms of heavenly existence, we are probably incapable of forming any present conception. But in addition to what I have already said, let us grasp the simple but precious thought, that whatever is essential to our nature as men will be perpetuated or reproduced in some form. Intellect, and will, and conscience, and affection, and emotion, will all be there. That individuality which makes every human being complete within himself, and that social affection which demands the love and fellowship of others, will be there. This thought alone is sufficient to give reality to our conceptions of the Paradise of God, and to make us feel that the better land is not a strange land, but the very home for which we are now training, and which we are nearing day by day.

"One sweetly solemn thought

Comes to me o'er and o'er; I'm nearer my home to-day Than I've ever been before!

Nearer my Father's house,

Where the many mansions be;

Nearer the great white throne,

Nearer the jasper sea!

Nearer the bound of life,

Where I lay my burden down; Nearer leaving my cross!

Nearer wearing my crown!"

ON WORSHIP.

By the Reb. M. M. Statham.

THAT We meet in the sanctuary for common one. That we meet for

worship is a dictum that has lately been doubted and denied. No such thing, it is boldly said; we meet for teaching! It is to be sincerely hoped that this conception of the chief end of our assembling together is not the

teaching is true, but other ends are secured by sanctuary service beside the education of thought; such as the quickening of religious sensibility by praise, the outpouring of man's great religious heart in prayer, and the