m, morning till evening." The same apostle teaches the Romans, that
"the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost;" and tells the Corinthians, that "the kingdom
of God is not in word, but in power." In all these instances, the
subjective signification prevails, and the kingdom of God is simply a
system of truth, or a state of the heart. And all are familiar with the
sentiment, that heaven is a state, as well as a place. All understand
that one half of heaven is in the human heart itself; and, that if this
half be wanting, the other half is useless,--as the half of a thing
generally is. Isaac Walton remarks of the devout Sibbs:

"Of this blest man, let this just praise be given, Heaven was in him,
before he was in heaven."

It is only because that in the eternal world the imperfect righteousness
of the renewed man is perfected, and the peace of the anxious soul
becomes total, and the joy that is so rare and faint in the Christian
experience here upon earth becomes the very element of life and
action,--it is only because eternity _completes_ the excellence of the
Christian (but does not begin it), that heaven, as a place of perfect
holiness and happiness, is said to be in the future life, and we are
commanded to seek a better country even a heavenly. But, because this is
so, let no one lose sight of the other side of the great truth, and
forget that man must "receive" the kingdom as well as "enter" it. Without
the right state of heart, without the mental correspondent to heaven,
that beautiful and happy region on high will, like any and every other
place, be a hell, instead of a paradise.[1] A distinguished writer
represents one of his characters as leaving the Old World, and seeking
happiness in the New, supposing that change of place and outward
circumstances could cure a restless mind. He found no rest by the change;
and in view of his disappointment says: "I will return, and in my
ancestral home, amid my paternal fields, among my own people, I will say,
_Here, or nowhere_, is America."[2] In like manner, must the Christian
seek happiness in present peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and must here
in this life strive after the righteousness that brings tranquillity.
Though he may look forward with aspiration to the new heavens and the new
earth wherein dwelleth a _perfected_ righteousness, yet he must remember
that his holiness and happiness there is merely an expansio