he human soul will be encircled by the character and attributes
of God. It cannot look in any direction without beholding it. It is not
so here. Here, in this life, man may and does avert his eye, and refuse
to look at the sheen and the splendor that pains his organ. He fastens
his glance upon the farm, or the merchandise, or the book, and
perseveringly determines not to see the purity of God that rebukes him.
And _here_ he can succeed. He can and does live days and months without
so much as a momentary glimpse of his Maker, and, as the apostle says,
is "without God" in this world. And yet such men do have, now and then, a
view of the face of God. It may be for an instant only. It may be merely
a thought, a gleam, a flash; and yet, like that quick flash of lightning,
of which our Lord speaks, that lighteneth out of the one part of heaven,
and shineth unto the other part, that cometh out of the East and shineth
even unto the West,--like that swift momentary flash which runs round the
whole horizon in the twinkling of an eye, this swift thought and gleam of
God's purity fills the whole guilty soul full of light. What spiritual
distress seizes the man in such moments, and of what a penetrating
perception of the Divine character is he possessed for an instant! It is
a distinct and an accurate knowledge, but, unlike the cognition of the
future state, it is not yet an inevitable and unintermittent one. He can
expel it, and become again an ignorant and indifferent being, as he was
before. He knows but "in part" at the very best, and this only
temporarily.

But carry this rational and accountable creature into eternity, denude
him of the body of sense, and take him out of the busy and noisy world of
sense into the silent world of spirits, and into the immediate presence
of God, and then he will know upon this subject even as he is known. That
sight and perception of God's purity which he had here for a brief
instant, and which was so painful because he was not in sympathy with it,
has now become everlasting. That distinct and accurate knowledge of
God's character has now become his only knowledge. That flash of
lightning has become light,--fixed, steady, permanent as the orb of day.
The rational spirit cannot for an instant rid itself of the idea of God.
Never for a moment, in the endless cycles, can it look away from its
Maker; for in His presence what other object is there to look at? Time
itself, with its pursuits and its obj