he Beatific Vision?

We know, first, _There shall be no sin there_. It shall be a pure and
innocent life. All who on earth have been loving, and pure, and noble,
and brave, and self-sacrificing, shall be there. All who have been
cleansed by the blood of Christ from the defilements of sin, and
strengthened by the power of Christ against the enticements of sin,
shall be there. There shall be no drunkenness nor impurity there, nor
hatred, nor emulation, nor ill temper, nor selfishness, nor meanness.
Ah! it is worth hoping for. We poor strugglers who hate ourselves and
are so dissatisfied with ourselves, who look from afar at the lovely
ideals rising within us, who think sorrowfully of all which we might
have been and have not been--let us keep up heart. One day the ideal
shall become the real. One day we shall have all these things for
which God has put the craving in our hearts to-day. We shall have no
sin there. We shall desire only and do only what is good. We shall be
there what we have only seemed or wished to be here--honest, true,
noble, sincere, genuine to the very centre of our being.

No sin there.

Section 2

And that will make it easier to understand the second fact revealed to
us. _No sorrow there_. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any
more. There shall be no more curse ... no pain, nor sorrow, nor
crying, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." That is
not hard to believe. Sin is the chief cause of our sorrow on earth.
If there be no sin there; if all are pure and unselfish and generous
and true, and if God wipes away all tears that come from causes other
than sin, it is easily understood.

But let us not degrade this thought or make it selfish or unreal. One
often hears the sneer or the doubt about the happiness of Heaven while
any exist who have lost their Heaven. We do not know the answer now.
But we shall know it then. And we must be absolutely certain that the
answer lies not in the direction of selfish indifference. The higher
any soul on earth grows in love the less can it escape unselfish sorrow
for others. Must it not be so in that land too? Surely the Highest
Himself must have more pain than any one else for the self-caused
misery of men. If there be joy in His presence over one that repenteth
must there not be pain over one that repenteth not? We can only say in
our deep ignorance that until the day when all evil shall have vanished
there are sur