"I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am,
there ye may be also."--John xiv. 3.

The Promised Return.

Another "word of promise" concerning the Church's "blessed hope."
Orphaned pilgrims, dry your tears! Soon the Morning Hour will strike,
and the sighs of a groaning and burdened creation be heard no more.
Earth's six thousand years of toil and sorrow are waning; the Millennial
Sabbath is at hand. Jesus will soon be heard to repeat concerning all
his sleeping saints, what He said of old regarding one of them: "I go to
awake them out of sleep!" Your beloved Lord's first coming was in
humiliation and woe; His name was--the "Man of Sorrows;" He had to
travel on, amid darkness and desertion, His blood-stained path; a
chaplet of thorns was the only crown He bore. But soon He will come "the
second time without a sin-offering unto salvation," never again to leave
His Church, but to receive those who followed Him in His cross, to be
everlasting partakers with Him in His crown. He may seem to tarry.
External nature, in her unvarying and undeviating sequences, gives no
indication of His approach. Centuries have elapsed since He uttered the
promise, and still He lingers; the everlasting hills wear no streak of
approaching dawn; we seem to listen in vain for the noise of His chariot
wheels. "But the Lord is not slack concerning His promise;" He gives you
"this word" in addition to many others as a _keepsake_--a pledge and
guarantee for the certainty of His return,--"_I will come again._"

Who can conceive all the surpassing blessedness connected with that
advent? The Elder Brother arrived to fetch the younger brethren
home!--the true Joseph revealing Himself in unutterable tenderness to
the brethren who were once estranged from Him--"receiving them unto
himself"--not satisfied with apportioning a kingdom for them, but, as if
all His own joy and bliss were intermingled with theirs, "Where _I am_,"
says He, "there _you_ must be also." "Him that overcometh," says He
again, "will I grant to sit with Me on My Throne."

Believer, can you _now_ say with some of the holy transport of the
apostle, "Whom having not seen, we love?" What must it be when you come
to see Him "face to face," and that for ever and ever! If you can tell
of precious hours of communion in a sin-stricken, woe-worn world, with a
treacherous heart, and an imperfect or divided love, what must it be
when you come, in a sinless, sorrowle