sun--'but
then face to face.' Incomplete knowledge shall be done away; and many
of its objects will drop, and much of what makes the science of earth
will be antiquated and effete. What would the hand-loom weaver's
knowledge of how to throw his shuttle be worth in a weaving-shed with
a thousand looms? Just so much will the knowledges of earth be when
we get yonder.

Modes of utterance will cease. With new experiences will come new
methods of communication. As a man can speak, and a beast can only
growl or bark, so a man in heaven, with new experiences, will have
new methods of communication. The comparison between that mode of
utterance which we now have, and that which we shall then possess,
will be like the difference between the old-fashioned semaphore, that
used to wave about clumsy wooden arms in order to convey
intelligence, and the telegraph.

Think, then, of a man going into that future life, and saying 'I knew
more about Sanscrit than anybody that ever lived in Europe'; 'I sang
sweet songs'; 'I was a past master in philology, grammars, and
lexicons'; 'I was a great orator.' 'Tongues shall cease'; and the
modes of utterance that belonged to earth, and all that holds of
them, will drop away, and be of no more use.

If these things are true, brethren, with regard even to the highest
form of these high and noble things, how much more and more solemnly
true are they with regard to the aims and objects which most of us
have in view? They will all drop away, and we shall be left, stripped
of what, for most of us, has made the whole interest and activity of
our lives.

II. What will last?

'So then, abideth these three, faith, hope, love.' When Paul takes
three nouns and couples them with a verb in the singular, he is not
making a slip of the pen, or committing a grammatical blunder which a
child could correct. But there is a great truth in that piece of
apparent grammatical irregularity; for the faith, the hope, and the
love, for which he can only afford a singular verb, are thereby
declared to be in their depth and essence one thing, and it, the
triple star, abides, and continues to shine. The three primitive
colours are unified in the white beam of light. Do not correct the
grammar, and spoil the sense, but discern what he means when he says,
'Now, abid_eth_ faith, hope, love.' For this is what he means,
that the two latter come out of the former, and that without it they
are nought, and that it without them