uins,
and fostered into glorious growth. Or, to take another metaphor of
the context, we strip off the garment and are naked; and then we are
clothed with another garment and are not found naked. The
resurrection of the dead is the clothing of the spirit with the house
which is from heaven. And there is as much difference between the two
habitations as there is between the grim, solid architecture
of northern peoples, amidst snow and ice, needed to resist the
blasts, and to keep the life within in an ungenial climate, and the
light, graceful dwellings of those who walk in an atmosphere of
perpetual sunshine in the tropics, as there is between the close-knit
and narrow-windowed and narrow-doored abode in which we now have to
pass our days, and that large house, with broad windows that take in
a mightier sweep and new senses that have relation with new qualities
in the world then around us. Therefore let us, whilst we grope in the
dark here, and live in a narrow hovel in a back street, look forward
to the time when we shall dwell on the sunny heights in the great
pavilion which God prepares for them that love Him.

II. And now note, again, how we come to this certitude.

My text is very significantly followed by a 'for,' which gives the
reason of the knowledge in a very remarkable manner. 'We know, ...
for in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our
house, which is from heaven.' Now that singular collocation of ideas
may be set forth thus--whatever longing there is in a Christian,
God-inspired soul, that longing is a prophecy of its own fulfilment.
We know that there is a house, because of the yearning, which is
deepest and strongest when we are nearest God, and likest what He
would have us to be--the yearning to be 'clothed upon with our house
which is from heaven.' That is a truth that goes a long way; though
to enlarge on it is irrelevant to our present purpose. It has its
limitations, as is obvious from the context, in which are human
elements which are not destined to be gratified, mingled with the
yearning, which is of God, and which is destined to be satisfied. But
this at least we may firmly hold by, that just because God will not
put men to confusion intellectually, and does not let them entertain
uncherished--still less Himself foster and excite--longings which He
does not mean to gratify, a Christian yearning for immortality is, to
the man who feels it, a declaration that immortality is s